On October 8, 7NEWS headlined that a daily pill “could stop” Parkinson’s. The study it describes matches Syntara’s trial of SNT-4728: 41 people, 12 weeks, brain inflammation measured on scans, not who developed Parkinson’s. The headline makes three promises, and the trial behind it tested none of them. ‘Simple’ and ‘daily’ describe a drug still in testing: 30 of 41 people with isolated REM sleep behaviour disorder took 15 mg of SNT-4728 once a day for 12 weeks, while 11 took a placebo. 38 of the 41 were men, median age 68. Syntara’s January release lists brain scans and sleep symptoms as the measures, and nothing about who goes on to develop Parkinson’s. The scan result is narrower than the word ‘pill’ suggests. The company reported a significant drop in inflammation in one region, the putamen, on one side of the brain only, with 20 of 30 treated patients below baseline. Three other regions, including the substantia nigra, showed no significant change. The 7NEWS page says “longer trials are now needed to show whether this drug can actually prevent Parkinson’s” in its eleventh paragraph. The tell: when a health headline promises an outcome, check whether the study counted that outcome or only a sign on a scan. The reader this headline reaches hardest is the frightened one, with a parent, a partner or their own body showing early signs. Hope is the feeling on offer, and it is quick to install and slow to let go. Syntara’s own release names who a good scan would interest: its funding partners, philanthropic organisations and pharmaceutical companies, to whom it would likely be “of strong interest”. The headline carries that hope to families, who are the one group not on that list.
