The gerontologists who received the email said they already were questioning the scientific soundness of the Russian study. If there was no fixed limit, why has her record stood for 20 years, while the pool of centenarians has grown? He said that he has noticed a series of what he said were suspicious patterns around the Calment case over the last few months. He criticized those who had spoken badly of his work, saying that gerontologists who had worked on Calment’s case were too invested in her success as the world’s oldest person. Gavrilov, who said he thinks Zak’s study was a student-level paper that cherry picked evidence, still believes that Calment’s case should be relooked at.

Source: Washington Post January 12, 2019 13:01 UTC