British Medical Journal Accused of Damaging Scientific Integrity
The British Medical Journal has retracted a peer-reviewed Dutch study linking Covid vaccines to excess deaths, despite investigators finding no evidence of data fabrication or malicious intent
Three independent experts have written to the journal calling the retraction “disproportional” and calling the decision “political”.
The Telegraph’s Science Editor Sarah Knapton has the story:
The British Medical Journal (BMJ) has been accused of damaging scientific integrity after retracting a paper which suggested that Covid vaccines may have been to blame for some excess deaths during the pandemic.
In 2024, a group in the Netherlands published a paper in BMJ Public Health, warning that some pandemic deaths may have been caused by the indirect effects of containment measures and vaccination programmes, and calling for further investigation.
The work was peer reviewed for nine months, and accepted as accurate by the BMJ, the UK’s leading medical journal. However, it was retracted this week after a slew of complaints and an investigation by the Princess Máxima Centre in Utrecht, where three of the four authors worked.
The investigation found no evidence of malicious intent, fabrication or falsification of data, but still labelled the work as misleading and selective because it “did not reflect scientific consensus”, and had disproportionately focused on the negative effects of vaccination.
Dr Saskia Mostert, the first author, has since resigned from the Princess Máxima Centre, and said she had been unprepared for the “irrational and blind fury” that met publication.
The BMJ said it was retracting the article because of “misinformation in the discussion regarding the possible causes of excess mortality and because the limited nature of the original work by the authors was not sufficiently described”.
But three experts from the Netherlands have written to the BMJ editorial board and have said they are shocked by the retraction and asked them to reconsider their decision.
“Retraction is disproportional and raises serious questions about the extent to which political considerations played a part in your decision,” they wrote.
“A retraction like this not only damages the integrity of the available published science, but it also sets a terrible precedent in these times of increasing political pressure on scientists.”
Ronald Meester, professor of probability theory at Vrije University in Amsterdam, who was one of the authors of the letter, told The Telegraph that there was “no scientific reason to retract”.
“I think that BMJ might have been pressured, but not clear by whom,” he said.
“As we wrote in our letter, retraction is bizarre in this case, there is nothing actually wrong with the paper. Hence the real reason must be political. Very sad, really, for science. I do not see how we can take science seriously anymore when editors are willing to make decisions for these kinds of reasons.”
See the Telegraph article here
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