Schneider Shorts for 11 June 2021: Mayo Clinic quietly passing on problematic professors, UK and Switzerland defining research misconduct, senolytics and other quackeries against COVID-19 and how sperm and faeces can make you afraid.
Table of discontent
COVID-19
- Senolytics against COVID-19
- Proxalutamide fraud to be investigated
- Retracted Vitamin D bunk passes peer review
Defining research misconduct
Bullying and harassment
- Mayo Clinic: We wish Dr. Grothey well in his future endeavors
COVID-19
First of all, maybe you missed my article on the topic of Lab Leak Theory, where I even kind of interviewed Germany’s top virologist Christian Drosten:
Senolytics against COVID-19
Who dies most of COVID-19? Old people. What do old people have? Old cells. Solution: take senolytics drugs to kill off those old cells so the virus can’t get you!
Science, as in Science, has spoken:
Christina D. Camell, Matthew J. Yousefzadeh, Yi Zhu, Larissa G. P. Langhi Prata, Matthew A. Huggins, Mark Pierson, Lei Zhang, Ryan D. O’Kelly, Tamar Pirtskhalava, Pengcheng Xun, Keisuke Ejima, Ailing Xue, Utkarsh Tripathi , Jair Machado Espindola-Netto , Nino Giorgadze , Elizabeth J. Atkinson , Christina L. Inman , Kurt O. Johnson , Stephanie H. Cholensky , Timothy W. Carlson , Nathan K. LeBrasseur, Sundeep Khosla, M. Gerard O’Sullivan, David B. Allison, Stephen C. Jameson, Alexander Meves, Ming Li, Y. S. Prakash, Sergio E. Chiarella, Sara E. Hamilton, Tamara Tchkonia, Laura J. Niedernhofer, James L. Kirkland, Paul D. Robbins Senolytics reduce coronavirus-related mortality in old mice Science (2021) doi: 10.1126/science.abe4832
The scientists, or rather the business people of the Mayo Clinic and the University of Minnesota solved COVID-19, according to this press release:
“Based on the “Amplifier/Rheostat Hypothesis” of senescent cells developed at Mayo, the researchers sought to discover how COVID-19 causes much higher mortality in the elderly and chronically-ill. They showed that human senescent cells have an amplified response to the SARS spike protein, provoking increased production of factors causing inflammation and tissue damage by senescent cells.”
Our Mayo Clinic geniuses discovered that you can prevent severe COVID-19 by killing those virus-attracting old cells of yours with “Fisetin, a natural flavonoid found in many fruits and vegetables (39, 40) that we established as senolytic (14, 41)“.
“The researchers suggest that reducing the existing burden of senescent cells in older or chronically-diseased patients may increase their resilience and decrease their risk of dying from viral infections, including SARS-CoV-2. Three such clinical trials are now underway.”
No, eating your five a day won’t protect you from COVID-19, you stingy git, nice try. You must buy the fisetin supplement. Or join one of Professor Kirkland’s 3 clinical trials sponsored by the Mayo Clinic: NCT04476953, NCT04771611 or NCT04537299. Not only will you survive COVID-19, you will even live longer! 3 years ago, same scientists discovered: “Fisetin is a senotherapeutic that extends health and lifespan“, published as Yousefzadeh et al EBioMedicine 2018.
YouTube video from 2018 “Lifespan and Health Extended Dramatically with Fisetin“: “University of Minnesota Medical School faculty Paul D. Robbins and Laura J. Niedernhofer and Mayo Clinic investigators James L. Kirkland and Tamara Tchkonia, showed […] that treatment of aged mice with the natural product Fisetin, found in many fruits and vegetables, also has significant positive effects on health and lifespan.“
Now you might think, that the hell, this is Science where my own papers get desk-rejected as not being bullshitty click-baity impactful enough, how did this silliness ever go through. Look at your self in the mirror then and ask how many millions in investor capital did YOU raise or earn. Exactly, you failed scientist loser.
Did you at least manage to start one single clinical trial with your own cure for COVID-19? No? Get lost, you creep.
Instead, the lead authors Niedernhofer and Robbins declare to be, among other things, “co-founders of NRTK Biosciences, a startup focused on the development of novel senolytics“, fisetin in particular, Robbins is also “co-founder and member of the Scientific Advisory Board for Genascence Corporation, a gene therapy company focused on osteoarthritis.” Kirkland is “a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for Elysium Health, marketing dietary supplements“. And here is one of Elysium’s founders and the first inventor of senolytics COVID-19 cure, the Harvard professor David Sinclair:
Proxalutamide fraud to be investigated
You may remember that miracle drug from China, proxalutamide, which according to Brazilian “scientists” and their US business partners cures both baldness and COVID-19?
It seems the evidence of fraud if not worse is so big, there will be an investigation! Brazilian journalists write:
“….,the information revealed aroused in specialists suspicions of fraud and serious flaws – such as the death of a high number of volunteers, which should have led to the immediate suspension of the research. In its investigation, Conep [National Research Ethics Commission] found that the case is even worse. All premises of the protocol submitted to the council by the proxalutamide researchers were not complied with. In practice, they did everything differently than they promised the ethics committee.
To begin, the researchers, led by the physician Flávio Cadegiani, registered the study as if it were going to be carried out in hospitals in Brasília, but they did it in Manaus and other cities in the Amazon.”They took the study at their own risk to the Amazon and distributed the medicine in a series of hospitals in the interior of the state without any approval”, explained a Conep advisor.
In addition, the protocol planned to test proxalutamide in less than 300 patients with moderate Covid, but the authors changed the direction of the research without informing Conep and applied the drug to 615 severely ill patients.
As if it were not enough,only when they submitted the final data to the commission,in May, the authors reported the occurrence of “more than 200 deaths”. Thus, they failed a Conep standard, dated May 2020, which establishes that the deaths of volunteers must be reported to the commission within 24 hours.
The death rate is also much higher than the 141 deaths that the researchers themselves reported at the press conference. At the time, they said most of the deaths would have occurred among volunteers who received the placebo – which would prove 92% effectiveness.”
The investigators should also check what “placebo” was. It seems, given Cadegiani and his partner Zimmerman’s past activities, to be a mixture of hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, nitazoxanide, azithromycin, fluvoxamine, colchicine, dexamethasone, dexlansoprazole, spironolactone, Vitamin D and various other drugs, all given as “standard care” combo to their defenceless COVID-19 patients. This would explain the murderously high death rate in the “placebo” arm, which seems to have been 200 out of 293 patients.
Vitamin D bunk passed peer review
Nick Brown spotted something peculiar regarding this recent peer-reviewed clinical study, which claims to cure COVID-19 with Vitamin D, having “significantly reduced ICU admission and mortality“:
Xavier Nogues, Diana Ovejero, Marta Pineda-Moncusí, Roger Bouillon, Dolors Arenas, Julio Pascual, Anna Ribes, Robert Guerri-Fernandez, Judit Villar-Garcia, Abora Rial, Carme Gimenez-Argente, Maria Lourdes Cos, Jaime Rodriguez-Morera, Isabel Campodarve, José Manuel Quesada-Gomez, Natalia Garcia-Giralt Calcifediol treatment and COVID-19-related outcomes The Journal of clinical endocrinology and metabolism (2021) doi: 10.1210/clinem/dgab405
Brown commented commented on PubPeer:
“This article appears to be the published version of a preprint that was the subject of substantial discussion on PubPeer earlier this year: https://pubpeer.com/publications/DAF3DFA9C4DE6D1B7047E91B1766F0
The preprint (which was hosted on SSRN in association with “Preprints by The Lancet”) was later retracted by The Lancet: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3771318
The published article seems to be quite similar to the preprint. The main difference seems to be that the overall sample size has been reduced by 92, because some patients who had previously been treated with calcifediol are now excluded. Curiously, however, after this reduction in the overall sample size, the number of people in the control group has gone up. It would be interesting to learn how this happened.
I have made annotated versions of the PDFs of both the preprint and the accepted manuscript here https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/12i3K7hXpvukTJvrXSAuGk0pspS3FCWWG?usp=sharing. Yellow highlighting indicates identical text, and pink shows the numbers that are relevant to my comment above about the apparent increase in the size of the control group.”
The preprint was withdrawn because “there was a series of mistakes made by the authors in the qualification of the study and its description“. But worry not, it now passed peer review at a journal published by Oxford University Press, issued by the eminent Endocrine Society, edited by professors at top universities in Europe and USA. Next time you blame preprints for bad science: it’s the peer review which failed again, while the trash preprint was withdrawn.
But sure, do as peer-reviewed science says, take your vitamin D pills if you want to survive this pandemic!
Defining research misconduct
No intent to deceive
Since we spoke of retractions, here is one by Sarah Guthrie, “a leading developmental neurobiologist” who since November 2019 is Head of the School for Life Sciences at the University of Sussex.
Here is her retracted paper, also featuring Christopher Shaw, a bigwig at King’s College London:
Pranetha Baskaran, Christopher Shaw, Sarah Guthrie TDP-43 causes neurotoxicity and cytoskeletal dysfunction in primary cortical neurons PLoS ONE (2018) doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0196528
The retraction statement from 1 June 2021 mentions:
“This issue was reviewed by the Research Integrity Office and Dean for Research Governance, Ethics and Integrity at Kings College London. The institution did not find evidence of intent to deceive but noted some issues around lack of awareness of good practice standards.“
Do you want to see what the authors did? Here you go:
No intent to deceive, you see yourself.
The Shaw-Guthrie team also issued an Erratum in Human Molecular Genetics, a journal run by England’s biggest parody of a scientist, the Oxford professor Dame Kay Davies.
Elsewhere in UK, Imperial College London Research integrity Officer Jon B Hancock BA (Hons) seems to be of the opinion that his university is not responsible when the PhD degrees it awards are based on dissertations containing falsified research. In any case, he declared that the PhD thesis of a former PhD student of the sacked Imperial College professor Eric Lam is not under investigation, despite the evidence of data manipulation the former student doesn’t even deny. Hancock refused to clarify.
English ethics, eh?
Switzerland goes tough
Switzerland, having solved all other issues in its academia, now cracks down on unjustified self citation. Inside Higher Education writes:
“Academics could soon be officially sanctioned in Switzerland for “unjustified” self-citation or claiming authorship despite contributing little to a project under a new code of conduct that could set a global trend. […] The overhaul began after the country’s national funder concluded internally that Switzerland — and indeed any country — was vulnerable to a repeat of the Paolo Macchiarini scandal, where a Swiss-Italian thoracic surgeon was found to have committed widespread research fraud, explained Edwin Constable, president of the expert group that drew up the new code.
“We recognized our 2008 code of conduct was outdated,” he said. Since then, online scrutiny of new forms of misconduct — either on social media or through new online platforms such as Retraction Watch or PubPeer — had become a part of scientific life, said Constable, a chemistry professor at the University of Basel.”
Apparently, Switzerland, which happens to lack a central authority on research ethics, must have absolutely no issues at all with falsified research, hence the reference to foreign cases. I wrote to the Basel professor Edwin Constable why he thinks so bad about Paolo Macchiarini if his sole source of information in this regard is Retraction Watch: no reply. Maybe the ethics expert thinks I plagiarised my articles from those by respectable writers? Anyway,Constable’s University of Basel could for example try to resolve the case of their own professor Marc Donath:
Bullying and harassment
We wish Dr. Grothey well in his future endeavors
Here a story of another former Mayo Clinic star scientist, Axel Grothey, who was “reprimanded by medical licensure boards in three states for engaging in unethical sexual relationships“, the reprimand by the Minnesota Board of Medical Practice was even made public. Grothey (who is German) very quietly left Mayo Clinic to work far away at the West Cancer Center, branch in Germantown, Tennessee. His bio there only mentions past residencies in Bochum and Essen university clinics in Germany, nothing about Mayo. Cancer Letter writes:
“If you were working at Mayo at the time of Grothey’s departure, chances are you wouldn’t have known why he had left. On May 31, 2018, an email to the Mayo faculty and staff said merely that Grothey “has decided to leave” for an unspecified destination and offered these arguably perfunctory parting words: “We wish Dr. Grothey well in his future endeavors.”
Documents obtained by The Cancer Letter during a six-month investigation make it possible to observe the sequelae of Grothey’s sexual misconduct, showing that the GI oncologist was, in fact, reported to Mayo’s Human Resources, which conducted an internal investigation.
That investigation found that Grothey’s “pattern of conduct demonstrated a failure on his part to establish and maintain appropriate professional boundaries with people who viewed him as a mentor.” This finding was not made public, and Grothey was given a choice between resigning and being terminated.”
Uncanny parallels in the Mayo Clinic procedure…
Science breakthroughs
- Bleach is being peddled as cure for all in Latin America: COVID-19, autism, anything. Behind it are US quacks like Mark Grennon (The Hill)
- Frontiers in Gomutra: Scientists from University of Cordoba in Spain claim that cow milk can cure COVID-19. Precisely, drinking milk from cows infected with a bovine coronavirus “would cause a total or partial inactivation of SARS-COV-2 (acting as a particular vaccine)“. The peer reviewed “hypothesis and theory article” Arenas et al Frontiers in Immunology 2021 contains exactly zero research data, but already made news. Actually, why not mixing in some cow urine and dung?
- Speaking of faeces: scientists from University of North Carolina Chapel Hill studied babies’ poop and decided that fear is coded by gut bacteria. The authors of Carlson et al Nature Communications 2021 conclude: “With further research, the gut microbiome may emerge as a key modulator of fear development and as such may become a means to prevent or ameliorate psychiatric disorders and behavioral problems“. If you have phobias, try a stool transplant!
- No wait, fear and stress are regulated by another bodily effusion: sperm. Even trans-generationally! Timid male mice produced stressed children, tough mouse fathers sire stress resilient offspring. As the first author of Cunnigham et al J Neuroscience 2021 explained in Inverse: “this study suggests that it’s not just the genes you inherit from your parents, but it can also be your parents’ experiences that can impact your risk of developing mood disorders“. Stressed heterosexual men are advised not to have sex till scientists find a solution!
News in brief
- Herbert Gleiter, octogenarian member of German Academy Leopoldina and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) emeritus, continues his fruitful collaboration with the scameference organiser and research fraudster Ashutosh Tiwari. Gleiter now became “Nano Glasses Consortium Chair” of Tiwari’s fictional Institute of Advance Materials.
- American Fascism goes green: Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich sues Biden’s the Department of Homeland Security for damaging the climate and environment by allowing immigrants in who use “housing, infrastructure, hospitals, and schools” and “drive cars, purchase goods, and use public parks and other facilities. Their actions also directly result in the release of pollutants, carbon dioxide, and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, which directly affects air quality.” (Vox). I’m sure Brnovich has ideas how to prevent immigrants from using up the air.
- Another sexual harasser, the anthropologist Gary Urton, has been stripped of his emeritus status by Harvard University and banned from the entire Harvard campus as of June 10, 2021. Urton is cited to have “engaged in unwelcome sexual conduct and abused power with individuals over whom he had professional responsibility. Additionally, he engaged in persistent sexual harassment” (Michael Balter’s blog)
- A article in Salon shows the ugly faces of atheism gurus (all male): Sam Harris is a racist who says Blacks are genetically less intelligent than white people because of evolution, James Lindsay is a racist, women-hater and virulent antisemite, his colleague Peter Boghossian is in turn a buddy of the white supremacist Stefan Molyneux, Michael Shermer is a sexual harasser accused of rape, Laurence Krauss is a former friend of the deceased paedophile Jeffrey Epstein and was sacked by the Arizona State University for sexual harassment, Steven Pinker is another former associate of Epstein, who constantly fights “political correctness” to deny the problems of racism and sexual violence, and Richard Dawkins is just embarrassing in his Twitter attacks on random people and groups. [Disclaimer: I am an atheist myself]
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Atheism Abusers: I’m not surprised. Just look at the german dependance de.richarddawkins.net, with Thomas Junker as “scientific advisor”: buddy of Schnullrich Lutschera, the german Dickie-Dawkins-wannabe and Mega-Embarass of Kassel University. Also Schnullrich made a short career as twitter bullshitter, don’t know exactly how it ended. But regardless of all his insults an idioties, we can assume that Junkie Thomas still loves him: he even praised Lutscheras music cd in an amazon review! -But: why on earth did that amazon article vanish, just like Schnullrichs tweets?? Hidden satanic messages???
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“Defining research misconduct
No intent to deceive”
Sarah Guthrie retraction recorded at Retraction Watch Database.
http://retractiondatabase.org/RetractionSearch.aspx#?auth%3dGuthrie%252c%2bSarah
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