How many research studies have you been part of? How many times have you started a drug and wondered if it was working? …Maybe they didn’t know what they were doing?

Checkout this article from the Atlantic by Ed Wong (May 17, 2019)“. The article dis cusses work by researchers who identified a gene called SLC6A4 that could influence depression. Then it discusses the research that showed the research was a waste.

A Waste of 1,000 Research Papers

Decades of early research on the genetics of depression were built on nonexistent foundations. How did that happen?

In 1996, a group of European researchers found that a certain gene, called SLC6A4, might influence a person’s risk of depression.

…But a new study—the biggest and most comprehensive of its kind yet—shows that this seemingly sturdy mountain of research is actually a house of cards, built on nonexistent foundations….

Richard Border of the University of Colorado at Boulder and his colleagues picked the 18 candidate genes that have been most commonly linked to depression—SLC6A4 chief among them. Using data from large groups of volunteers, ranging from 62,000 to 443,000 people, the team checked whether any versions of these genes were more common among people with depression. “We didn’t find a smidge of evidence,” says Matthew Keller, who led the project.