I’ve seen this kind of stuff before. Medical research is very competitive and can get quite nasty. This is especially true when potentially billions are at stake.
I don’t know where I ready it, but I once read that if someone cured cancer, half of NIH would kill themselves and the other half would be in denial. That’s because they’ve all dedicated their entire careers to something specific and narrow and potentially, suddenly, their work might become meaningless.
Human society is not always acting with the best motivations even if people do want to generally be good.