Why has there been so little progress on Alzheimer's disease?

Yes.

Not uncritically, but if the research presents a logically consistent hypothesis, and evidence supporting it, then it would be worth following up on with independent groups and if it remains consistent to scrutiny then it should be accepted.

That's how science works.

From your link:

> Not geoengineering

> The project is also unlikely to bury much if any carbon dioxide for one simple reason: metabolism. As other iron fertilization experiments have shown, it is relatively easy to get plankton to bloom, but it is harder for that bloom to sink to the bottom of the ocean, where it takes CO2 with it.

This project is a net carbon emitter by design.

Do you really think that adding iron releases net carbon? That would be hard to explain chemically.

The worst case scenario laid out in that article is that most of the carbon absorbed, was later rereleased. So net zero carbon, not net carbon emitter.

I've seen other reports of that exact experiment that estimated a significant net carbon sink. The actual experiment failed to make measurements that lets us know which actually happened.

Regardless, we've certainly demonstrated that, at least sometimes, there is significant net carbon capture, at low cost. Given the certainty of global damage at present, I believe that this justifies continued experimentation. Even if it means accepting possible risk to local ecosystems. The local ecosystem can generally recover. The planet, not so much.

Even without understanding pharmaceutical research, your claim to understanding business strategy is braindead: there is not 1 pharmaceutical company. And many pharmaceutical companies work on treatments for the same conditions and diseases.

Why would any competitor sit on a cure for a condition there opponents can only treat when in the short term you'd post amazing next quarter profits, and in the long term you'd financially diminish that competitor in the market place even if we grant the position that you are somehow able to find treatments that aren't cures (others have explained ably why this isn't how it works).

Everything looks like a conspiracy when you don't understand anything.

Most of these comments are spot on. We seeded (and continued to fund) the most recently approved Alzheimer's drug on the market about 15 years ago and fought an uphill battle the entire way. The entire industry - other than what seems about a dozen neuroscientists - were fully bought into the plaque scam, and many still are. As I mentioned in a different thread some time ago, the best way to think about plaque is like gravestones in a cemetery. If you remove the gravestones, the dead bodies are still there.

We were introduced to the head of neuroscience at Houston Methodist as part of our due diligence process; his entire career was built upon the removal of plaque from the brain and would not even consider an alternative theory. We ran into this for years. It made funding the trials very difficult. We were totally ignored by all the Alzheimer's charities and orgs (ie Seth Rogan's for example). Only the Michael J. Fox foundation contributed early on.

However, our drug, now known as Zunveyl, was a pro-drug of already on the market Galanatmine, which was the second most commonly prescribed drug in the world for this disease (about $6BN/yr). Our pro-drug almost eliminated the side effects of Galanamine (nausea, vomiting) and enabled us to increase dosage high enough to actually get enough molecules into the brain. It was (is) awesome. Some of our first clinical trials were healthy young adults - they did extremely well. I don't think I can share the actual results but I hope that we (or someone) can fund a study to get approval for "regular people" usage one day given how well this test went. Later tests went just a well but only thanks to the "fast track" program were we able to even get to market.

Even today after being on the market for about a year now, the market uptake is slow due to insurance company approvals. We are getting reorders like crazy but often new patients get denied initially and then doctors have to appeal and then they get approved. This has been taking about 6 months on average and is brutal for people with the disease (and their families). Since getting a drug to patients is actually a (sadly and surprisingly) large sales and marketing expense, the company (Alpha Cognition) is focusing on long-term-care centers for now, but we had always hoped that this would be available much more broadly and much faster. Several of the early investor's parents were alive and afflicted with this disease when we started, but have since passed away. I hope that we can get this out and help others - faster.

The mother company that spun this out is also working on other molecules to try to stop Alzheimer's itself, rather than "only" help with symptoms but as always funding is a challenge. Clinical trials must be done correctly and are thus expensive.

Been living this battle for 15+ years and hoped that this can shed a little light on how things have been.