Alzheimer's ... afflicts nearly seven million Americans, about one in every nine people over the age of 65, making it a leading cause of death among older adults. Up to 420,000 adults in the prime of life including people as young as 30 " suffer from early-onset Alzheimer's. The annual number of new cases of dementia is expected to double by 2050. Yet despite decades of research, no treatment has been created that arrests Alzheimer's cognitive deterioration, let alone reverses it. Over the past 25 years, Alzheimer's research has suffered a litany of ostensible fraud and other misconduct by world-famous researchers and obscure scientists alike. These deceptions have warped the trajectory of Alzheimer's research and drug development, prompting critical concerns about how bad actors, groupthink and perverse research incentives have undermined the pursuit of treatments and cures. This may have jeopardized the well-being of patients. I asked a team of brain and scientific imaging experts to help me analyze suspicious studies by 46 leading Alzheimer's researchers. Collectively, the experts identified nearly 600 dubious papers from the group that have distorted the field " papers having been cited some 80,000 times. Many of the most respected Alzheimer's scholars " whose work steers the scientific discourse " repeatedly referred to those tainted studies to support their own ideas. This has compromised the field's established base of knowledge.