Healthy Skepticism Library item: 19256

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Publication type: news

Silverman E
Should A Paxil Journal Article Be Retracted?
Pharmalot 2011 Jan 24
http://www.pharmalot.com/2011/01/should-a-paxil-journal-article-be-retracted/

Full text:

A decade ago, the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry published a paper concluding the Paxil antidepressant, which is sold by GlaxoSmithKline, was “generally well tolerated and effective for major depression in adolescents.” But the study has since been discredited amid charges that primary and secondary outcomes were conflated, selective results were reported and ghostwriting was involved (background here and here).
The details became known more than two years ago as documents emerged from investigations (see this) and lawsuits charging GlaxoSmithKline hid the risks of its Paxil pill. By then, the FDA required Glaxo to place a Black Box warning about suicidality in youngsters and UK regulators recommended the drug not be given to those under 18 years of age. But by last June, the paper had been cited in more than 200 other articles, many of which continued to point to the study as evidence that Paxil is effective in treating adolescent depression, according to BMJ.
And so two academics – Jon Jureidini, associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Adelaide, and Leemon McHenry, lecturer in philosophy at California State University – asked the the journal in December 2009 to retract the paper because, they argue, it is misleading. “The JACAAP was the most important instrument through which the results of Study 329 were misrepresented to physicians,” they tell BMJ. So far, though, their call has gone on unheeded.
The JAACAP editor tells BMJ the paper does not contain any inaccuracies and negative findings are included in a results table and, as a result, there are no grounds for withdrawal. The decision to publish the paper “conformed to best publication practices prevailing at the time,” and he had given “serious consideration and due diligence” to the request but found no evidence of scientific errors “nor any justification for retraction according to current editorial standards and scientific publication guidelines,” BMJ writes (please see the BMJ piece here). For its part, Glaxo continues to maintain it acted properly and that the paper was submitted before a link to suicidality was made.
The spat raises questions about if and when a journal article should be retracted. As BMJ notes, last year, the Committee on Publication Ethics expanded its own notion and recommended retraction if journals “have clear evidence that the findings are unreliable.” The point is to “correct the literature and ensure its integrity” rather than to punish authors (here are the guidlines). And the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors urge retraction in the event of scientific fraud or if an error is “so serious as to vitiate the entire body of work (read here).
The point, in other words, is to set the record straight. After all, why continually disseminate mistakes that can have undesirable health outcomes? Nonetheless, BMJ points out that retractions do not occur very often: in 1990, five of 690,000 journal articles published were retracted, compared with 95 retractions out of 1.4 million papers published in 2008.
And some question the virtue of continual look backs. As Harvey Marcovitch, a former chair at the Committee on Publication Ethics tells BMJ: “There are very many papers where, if you looked at the data, you could argue that the conclusions are not justified. If you used retraction whenever that happened you’d be continuously retracting.” Jureidini, however, believes journal editors “prefer to turn a blind eye,” rather than acknowledge a problem needs to be addressed. What do you think?
Should The JAACAP Retract The Paxil Article?
Yes (74%, 70 Votes)
No (26%, 24 Votes)
Total Voters: 94