The fraud case he saw coming; well done Prof DB!
Read all about it in Nature News & Science Insider.
The paper David spotted: Van Parijs et al. Role of interleukin 12 and costimulators in T cell anergy in vivo. J Exp Med. 1997 Oct 6;186(7):1119-28.
“Another one of our day jobs is to expose research fraud; unfortunately it is not always this obvious. Fraud not only sends people down the wrong track in terms of scientific discovery, but it makes the general public lose faith in the scientific process. This can’t be a good thing. Biases and conflicts of interest are also a problem, but are hopefully not as big a problem to deal with as fraud, provided there is transparency.”
|
1.
|
|
|
Van Parijs L, Refaeli Y, Lord JD, Nelson BH, Abbas AK, Baltimore D.
|
|
|
Immunity. 2009 Apr 17;30(4):611. No abstract available.
|
|
|
PMID: 19382300 [PubMed – indexed for MEDLINE]
|
|
|
2.
|
|
|
Van Parijs L, Refaeli Y, Abbas AK, Baltimore D.
|
|
|
Immunity. 2009 Apr 17;30(4):612. No abstract available.
|
|
|
PMID: 19378495 [PubMed – indexed for MEDLINE]
|
|
|
3.
|
|
|
Van Parijs L, Peterson DA, Abbas AK.
|
|
|
Immunity. 2009 Apr 17;30(4):611. No abstract available.
|
|
|
PMID: 19378493 [PubMed – indexed for MEDLINE]
|
|
Additional reading: Luk van Parijs
I would like someone to expose the greatest fraud in MS research – EAE and other mouse models that bear no resemblance to human MS. The $ millions spent over the decades on EA research and the complete failure to identify any effective treatments form this model is the biggest scandal / fraud – unfortunately no one is prepared to rock the boat and own up to this.
Re: "The $ millions spent over the decades on EA research and the complete failure to identify any effective treatments form this model is the biggest scandal / fraud – unfortunately no one is prepared to rock the boat and own up to this."Not true; glatiramer acetate, natalizumab, fingolimod and many more drugs in clinical trials have come via EAE. I agree EAE is not MS, but if used intelligently it can provide useful insights into MS and how to treat it. For example, we are working on new drugs to treat spasticity. We only know they work against spasticity because we were able to test them in an animal model.
But given that the risk factors for MS in humans are female gender, Vit D deficiency, infection with EBV, smoking, month of birth, how does the mouse model reflect these factors? On BBC news yesterday there was a scientist (Parkinson's researcher) who said that the best models for neurological diseases were primates / monkeys. He said the brains of rodents were not wired the same as humans e.g. had four feet.
Re: "But given that the risk factors for MS in humans are female gender, Vit D deficiency, infection with EBV, smoking, month of birth, how does the mouse model reflect these factors?"EAE does not reflect MS in terms of risk factors etc. It is a better model of the human disease called ADEM (acute disseminated encephalomyelitis). However, it is useful for studying autoimmune reactions within the CNS and for studying how inflammation causes neuronal loss. I will ask Prof. David Baker to expand on this in more detail with a series of posts.
Every day you turn on your TV set to see the work of the Met Office. They present the weather at the end of the news. However, their real job is to forecast the weather so that our service men and women and other people can do their job safely. Do they get it right all of the time? Of course they don’t. This is not Fraud!EAE experiments are undertaken with the view of bringing safe drugs towards the treatment of MSers. There is no intent to deceive. This is not Fraud! Charging serious amounts of cash for treatments that deceive the MSer into thinking they will be of benefit when there is little prospect of benefit is Fraud!