Medical advances have beaten back many relentless assassins in recent decades, such as cancer and heart disease. A wide range of treatments share credit: surgery, medicines, radiation, genetic therapies and healthful habits. Mortality rates for those two diseases, the top causes of death in the United States, have fallen sharply. But in an aging population, Alzheimer’s death rates have gone in the opposite direction.

 By Charles Piller

Mr. Piller is an investigative journalist for Science. This essay is adapted from his upcoming book, “Doctored: Fraud, Arrogance, and Tragedy in the Quest to Cure Alzheimer’s.”

• Jan. 24, 2025

Government agencies that oversee Alzheimer’s research and enormously influence the field also need to rethink how they operate, and to move with urgency. Officials of the National Institutes of Health, of which the National Institute on Aging is a part, didn’t inspire confidence in response to the questions I sent them about Dr. Masliah as I conducted my 2024 investigation for Science. The N.I.H. acknowledged that the agency does not routinely check scientists’ work for fraud as part of the hiring process. “There is no evidence that such proactive screening would improve, or is necessary to improve, the research environment at N.I.H.,” said an agency spokesperson.