A senior government adviser attempted to undermine a controversial study suggesting that Alzheimer’s is a transmissible disease before it was published in the journal Nature.

Dame Sally Davies, the chief medical officer at the Department of Health, approached the editor of a rival scientific journal, The Lancet, to discredit the study in the eyes of the public,The Independentunderstands.

The study, published earlier this month, suggested that the “seeds” of Alzheimer’s disease may be transmitted from one person to another during certain medical procedures.

It is highly unusual for a government science adviser to approach a medical journal for help in media management relating to a controversial study published in a rival journal with its own distinguished track-record of handling contentious research findings.

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