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Brett started by pointing out that in the 40's, science discovered people age because telomeres (proteins in DNA) have a finite length and can therefore can only support so many cell divisions before wearing out, causing cellular degeneration.
Later it was found that telomere length is a balance between supporting cellular division (anti-aging) and susceptibility to cancer. One trades off with the other. Literature on mice in general said that they had long telomeres, and Brett suspected this might be incorrect because wild mice didn't get cancer at the rate lab mice did.
Turns out everyone gets lab mice from the same place, and they end up being selected for long telomeres, and therefore aren't representative of wild mice. The bigger problem is that drugs are tested on these lab mice, which have higher capability for cellular division than wild mice, and therefore aren't suitable proxies for humans. The drug companies buried these facts.
This experience is what informed Brett to be sceptical of research methodology and be suspicious of incentives related to research.
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