Yesterday, I posted on a story in The New York Times by Gina Kolata that contained more superlative adjectives than you can find in some of the most overheated advertising copy.
The story reported on a way to create a version of Alzheimer’s disease by growing neurons in a laboratory dish, a potentially important advance for the screening of possible drug treatments. But in Kolata’s hands, it became “a giant step forward,” “a real game-changer,” “a paradigm shifter,” and a “tour de force.” She summed it all up as “astonishing.” And the headline called it a “breakthrough.”
Comments I received in response to that post now suggest a somewhat darker side to the story. Rudolph Tanzi of the Massachusetts General Hospital, the principal figure behind Alzheimer’s-in-a-dish, has been accused of “cheerleading,” or trying to find “anything positive to report” when a drug his company was testing against Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s disease failed. Here’s what John Carroll wrote on FierceBiotech:
Alzheimer’s is a perplexing and controversial field that has defeated dozens of serious attempts to develop new drugs that can either blunt the development of the disease or stop it. Tanzi himself is the scientific founder of Prana Biotechnology ($PRAN), a tiny company with a market cap of $88 million that recently claimed to see great success in a failed Phase II study of a novel Alzheimer’s drug inspired by Tanzi’s work on the role of zinc and copper balances.
Back in March, Prana’s drug–PBT2, which promised to address the disease by triggering a chemical balancing act in the brains of Alzheimer’s victims at a prodromal or early stage of development–failed the primary endpoint of reducing signs of amyloid beta and it failed the secondary endpoints of brain activity, cognition and function compared to a placebo. Prana’s shares collapsed in the rout that followed.
Further, it turns out that the story that drove Kolata to excess was not highlighted in the press materials distributed by Nature, which published the Tanzi study. That’s not terribly damaging; it’s possible Kolata spotted a gem that Nature’s press people missed.
Still, Kolata might do well to be a little more restrained in her reporting on Alzheimer’s disease. It’s irresponsible to let families think a new treatment is close, when it might not be close at all.
-Paul Raeburn
And perhaps her editor “isn’t a scientist.”
Seems like every few years Gina Kolata flies off the cliff. Does she suffer from RHD (Relapsing Hyperbole Disorder)?
The worst penalty of all–the loss of confidence of her readers.
Do you see any penalty to her for flying off said cliff?
Re: “… not highlighted in the press materials distributed by Nature…. That’s not terribly damaging….”
That’s not damaging at all. Nature’s press people highlight only a fraction of the journal’s many papers, and often not the most important ones.