A dogged account of how the quest for a treatment may have been set back years by fraudulent evidence
Living to old age is quite literally the best thing that any of us could hope for, given the alternative. It’s a cruel irony, then, that many of us who make it that far will begin to lose our sense of who we are due to dementia. If you’re 65, you’ve got about a one in 20 chance of developing the most common form, Alzheimer’s disease, in the next decade. At 75, it’s about one in seven, while those fortunate enough to reach 85 face a one in three chance.
Given the toll this illness takes on sufferers and those around them, hundreds of millions of families around the world are desperate for a medical breakthrough – and for years, headlines have suggested that it might be imminent. Scientists had identified the cause of Alzheimer’s, they promised, and potential cures were already being tested.
About Author
More Stories
Tesla stops taking orders in China for two models imported from US
Katy Perry’s blast-off was a waste of space | Letters
‘I sent AI to art school!’ The postmodern master who taught a machine to beef up his old work