Sure. Nobody (seriously) believes that correlations can’t be suggestive of a causal relationships....but they do need to be followed up.
It’s more that the AZ field has found this particular correlation over and over and over again. Despite millions (possibly closing in on billions) of dollars, however, it’s proven difficult to turn it into a causal link. A-Beta antibodies repeatedly fail, both before and after the plaques appear. Various types of inhibitors don’t work. If a method does something to amyloids, someone has probably tried it already, often in an expensive and ill-advised trial.
This is only barely hyperbolic: https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2018/06/12/an...
I actually was surprised to read the following sentence in there, While amyloid continues to be a target,
26 of the 41 pharmacological trials supported by NIA are
focused on other targets.
That's still far too much being thrown into a theory with a history of failure. But there is a shift there. Perhaps being criticized in places like Nature and Scientific American had an effect? One can hope!
It’s more that the AZ field has found this particular correlation over and over and over again. Despite millions (possibly closing in on billions) of dollars, however, it’s proven difficult to turn it into a causal link. A-Beta antibodies repeatedly fail, both before and after the plaques appear. Various types of inhibitors don’t work. If a method does something to amyloids, someone has probably tried it already, often in an expensive and ill-advised trial. This is only barely hyperbolic: https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2018/06/12/an...