In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was condemned to push a boulder up a mountain, only to see it roll back down to its starting point every time he reached the summit. This endless, repetitive effort has become a symbol of futile labor. Similarly, the press often repeats the same mistakes, becoming excited about extraordinary announcements that have yet to undergo scientific scrutiny. The most recent example is polylaminin, a substance touted as capable of restoring movement to people with spinal cord injuries.
One of the most common mistakes is the rush to announce discoveries before the scientific community has had time to evaluate them. In March 1989, chemists Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons published a paper claiming to have achieved nuclear fusion at room temperature – something extraordinary that would solve humanity’s energy problem. The paper, with all the problems that would later be exposed, was published in a scientific journal, which gave it an initial appearance of legitimacy.
The press, however, didn’t wait for the expert community to weigh in on the plausibility of the result. A few months later, it became clear that the discovery didn’t hold water; the expected byproducts of fusion reactions weren’t present, the experiments weren’t reproducible, and the proposed explanation violated basic principles of nuclear physics. But the damage had already been done: society had been led to believe, for some time, that a magic solution to the energy crisis was within reach.
In 2022, there was a stir surrounding nuclear fusion at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the United States, when a “positive energy balance” was announced for the first time in the experiment. The news spread around the world with headlines that raised hopes of an “infinite” energy source soon available to humanity. What was overlooked was the fact that the entire result was based solely on a press release from the US Department of Energy, without a published technical paper. The scientific paper, published only in 2024, makes it clear that the definition adopted for positive energy balance is quite restrictive. Considering all the stages, the experiment consumes far more energy than it produces – the result is far from being a “Holy Grail of clean energy“.
The most recent case is that of polylaminin, an experimental substance touted as capable of restoring movement to people with spinal cord injuries. The headlines in the press were emphatic: “Brazilian experimental drug restores mobility to quadriplegics” in Veja magazine, or “Unprecedented drug restores movement to patients with spinal cord injuries” on CNN Brasil. It’s undeniable that the prospect of a drug that can help victims of spinal cord injuries is generating enormous interest. The problem is that, to date, there are no published scientific articles to corroborate these claims. The information comes from interviews with the researcher and press releases. What we know are individual case reports, insufficient to support generalised conclusions.
The researcher’s most recent article on this subject, mentioned in several articles, was published in the journal Frontiers in Veterinary Science and describes studies conducted on only six dogs, without a placebo group, making it impossible to robustly assess the substance’s efficacy. The authors themselves explicitly acknowledge this limitation. In free translation:
“However, the small and heterogeneous number of animals in our cohort limited our ability to distinguish the individual contributions of polylaminin (…). Furthermore, the absence of a placebo group precludes definitive conclusions about the treatment’s efficacy.”
The media’s failure to wait for the technical debate and transform an extraordinary hypothesis into a fait accompli generates expectations disproportionate to reality. Families and patients living with spinal cord injuries tend to believe that a solution is near, when in reality, the path to an approved and available medication is long, undergoing rigorous stages of clinical trials, in addition to the necessary regulatory approval by Anvisa. Cases like this, although distinct, inevitably evoke memories of the sensationalism surrounding synthetic phosphoethanolamine and other drugs without scientific validation.
This isn’t to deny the importance of research that seeks solutions to serious problems. On the contrary, it’s precisely because the topic is relevant that it deserves even greater rigor in how it’s communicated. The history of science shows that real advances are confirmed by multiple layers of evidence and published in quality journals. This standard should guide the public dissemination of discoveries that present themselves as extraordinary.
This story was originally published by Revista Questão de Ciência in Brazil. It is translated and reprinted here with permission.
