A lot of cash has been injected into OSK experimentation. This drives a sunk cost fallacy amongst other things. However, one should keep an open mind.
Well, it’s also because journals generally don’t like to publish negative studies. Or the studies will be viciously attacked by peer reviewers, who cite previous studies to say why the new one is wrong.
So you can’t put 100% blame on the authors. I suppose they could put out a pre-print, but not every funder is cool with that.
My lab has done some partial reprogramming stuff, and I think it can work as a therapy, but you have to control it more carefully than we are able to using our relatively crude tools. And I don’t believe it can work in some sort of systemic manner for lifespan extension, because there’s no way you want to globally reprogram all cells. You need tissue-specific, perhaps cell-specific targeting, which is incredibly difficult to achieve.
The problem with all these commenters on X is that they themselves are also choosing to participate in this attention market place, trying to advance themselves. Going online and publicly calling something disturbing, shocking, etc, and making smug statements about “science is about the discovering the truth” is more about making yourself look good, and isn’t actually helping anybody.