News -- Correspondence published in The Lancet

News

I am proud to share that The Lancet have published our correspondence regarding the retraction of an influential long-COVID publication that was published in The Lancet in 2021.

The retraction of the publication was based on the discovery of data inconcistencies in the study, which we brought to the attention of the editors of The Lancet. More specifically, we highlighted inconcistencies between data from the now retracted (and republished) 6-month followup publication and the subsequent 12-month followup publication which also relied on data from the 6-month followup.

After we reached out to The Lancet, an initial expression of concern was published by The Lancet, until the the original 6-month publication was later retracted.

We are happy to see that the 6-month followup publication has been retracted and published in a corrected form, and that the authors have addressed some of our concerns. However, we still have some concerns that have not been addressed, and we therefore feel that it is important to publish our correspondence to ensure that these concers are brought forward to the wider scientific community.

Briefly, when we reached out to The Lancet we also highlighted some methodological concerns, in addition to the data inconcistencies, that we felt should be addressed. We highlighted that there were differences in the phrasing of the questionnaires used at the 6-month followup and the 12-month followup. These questions were foundational for the conclusions reached in the 12-month followup publication. This difference likely hampers the conclusion that is presented in the 12-month paper that “Most COVID-19 survivors had a good physical and functional recovery during 1-year follow-up, and had returned to their original work and life.”, and we believe that the conclusion of the 12-month paper should be revised to reflect the data inconsistencies and methodological inconcistencies that have been brought to light.

The retraction of this paper has also been covered by the scientific integrity blog Retraction Watch, which tracks retractions and other scientific integrity issues. The blog has coverd this story from the initial expression of concern to the retraction and republishing of the paper. This retraction is also included in the list of Retracted coronavirus (COVID-19) papers.

We hope that our correspondence will serve as a reminder to all researchers to adhere to the highest standards of scientific integrity and to ensure that their work is conducted in an ethical manner. We also hope that it will encourage journals to implement more rigorous quality control measures to prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future.

We would like to thank The Lancet for their transparency in this matter, and for their willingness to publish our correspondence. We would also like to thank the authors of the original publication for their cooperation in addressing our concerns.