Schindler and Price publish “Bad Science: Exploring the unethical research behind a putative memory supplement”

bad science

Abbie Schindler and IAS faculty member Becca Price published a teaching module called “Bad Science: Exploring the unethical research behind a putative memory supplement” in CourseSource. In the lesson, students evaluate the evidence that Quincy Bioscience has published on its website advertising the memory supplement Prevagen®. Through their own analysis, students discover that the website is misleading: there are fundamental problems in the studies Quincy has conducted about the supplement; there is no way for the supplement to affect the brain because it is digested so quickly; there is conflict of interest in the studies and in where they were published; and recent lawsuits accuse Quincy of overstating the claims about what Prevagen® can do.

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Schindler and Price met through the Science Teaching Experience for Postdocs (STEP) Program, a program that Price runs to support postdoctoral fellows develop sophisticated, evidence-based, and inclusive teaching practices. Schindler completed the program in 2015 and is now a professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, UW and VA Puget Sound Health Care System. Schindler developed this module as part of her STEP teaching, and this paper is the first publication written by a STEP fellow based on material they developed for one of their courses.