Kaeberlein called the report on rapamycin in dogs fabricated; the trial remains blinded

Kaeberlein called the report on rapamycin in dogs fabricated; the trial remains blinded

On August 24, gerontologist Matt Kaeberlein said that neither he, Daniel Promislow, nor Kate Creevy had written the report about the Dog Aging Project. The rapamycin trial in dogs is still underway. Neither the owners nor the researchers yet know which dogs received the drug and which received placebo.

“This is a fabricated story. Daniel Promislow, Kate Creevy, and I did not write it. The Dog Aging Project clinical trial of rapamycin is still ongoing and remains blinded,” Kaeberlein wrote.

The Dog Aging Project is a research project that studies aging in companion dogs. Its TRIAD trial compares rapamycin with placebo. The project website describes TRIAD as a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. Until the data are unblinded, neither the owners nor the researchers know which dogs receive the drug. This design prevents expectations about treatment from influencing assessments of the animals’ health.

A report attributed to well-known researchers could appear to be a finished scientific news story. Kaeberlein, whom the report identified as one of its authors, said that the trial was still underway and that the group assignments remained concealed.

Two days earlier, Kaeberlein had warned that bold claims about extending lifespan undermine trust in the data and could make aging research harder to fund. In this case, the scientific headline and well-known names could have created the impression that results were available while the trial was still collecting data.

In a separate post, Kaeberlein described “Longevity News” on a Chia Health subdomain as marketing material and suggested that the content had been created by AI.