Charles Piller

Other joint papers from Schrag and Grebe were retracted soon after, along with a few more Grebe papers.

Since 2022, Grebe has been teaching at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.

He wrote, He wrote,

He also wrote, I insist that the imaging figures in Dr. Schrag's two manuscripts from my lab are the images he handed to me.

He had many years to question the pictures if he believed they were altered.

Grebe also told us that he lost access to his lab and his data after retiring from the University of North Dakota in 2020.

The journalist Charles Piller told us that he tried to speak with Grebe before Piller published an article on these allegations in Science.

Piller said that Grebe agreed to an in-person interview, but backed out a few days prior.

I went back to Charles Piller with some more questions.

You write that Alzheimer's research has essentially been hijacked by a cabal of self-interested researchers, government accomplices and corporate greed.

That's pretty dramatic, Charles.

I can imagine that some ears hearing that immediately go to conspiracy theory territory.

Persuade me that this is not conspiracy theory that you're floating here, that the researchers, government accomplices and corporate greed are spoiling the pool for everyone here and that this is based on research and reporting and actual empirical arguments.

You write that 11 of 16 FDA medical examiners who worked on drug approvals left to become employees or consultants for the companies that they just regulated.

Public Citizen has concluded that regulatory capture has now infiltrated the FDA.

Tell me a little bit more about that.

How do you think about your role at a time when there is a growing distrust of science in some places, including some places within the federal government?

A lot of your reporting has been shining a light on misbehavior, which you could argue might destroy trust even more.

How does that change the way you work?

Condescension along the lines of, trust us, we're scientists?