A case study of a retracted systematic review on interactive health communication applications: impact on media, scientists, and patients

Dissemination of Erroneous Research Findings and Subsequent Retraction in High-Circulation Newspapers: A Case Study of Alleged MDMA-Induced Dopaminergic Neurotoxicity in Primates

Ensuring the public is informed of retractions has proven difficult for the scientific community. While it is possible that newspapers focus differential attention on publication of scientific articles and their subsequent retractions, this topic has received minimal attention from researchers. To learn more, we analyzed newspaper coverage of the high-profile 2002 article Severe dopaminergic neurotoxicity in primates after a common recreational dose regimen of MDMA ("ecstasy") and its retraction in a case study. We searched the 50 largest American newspapers with available online archives for stories about the article's publication and retraction. Of the 50 newspapers, 26 (52%) covered the article's publication and 20 (40%) its retraction. Six of the 50 newspapers (12%) published stories on the article's retraction without covering its initial publication. Of the 26 newspapers covering the article's publication, only 14 (54%) covered its retraction. Stories about the retraction were balanced, but shorter than those on the article's publication and often lacking in context and detail. While the decrease in coverage of the article's retraction was moderate among the entire sample, the much lower retraction coverage in newspapers that had already covered the article's publication is concerning and emphasizes the need for increased media coverage of retractions.

Internet methods for delivering behavioral and health-related interventions (eHealth)

Emerging communications technologies allow us to potentially reach more individuals with effective health-related advice and information at a very low cost. As we begin a new era of "personalized medicine," advances in consumer health informatics will parallel and eventually merge with those being made in bioinformatics (e.g., genomic information), medical informatics (e.g., electronic medical records), and public health informatics (e.g., disease surveillance). This article discusses access, use, quality, and types of eHealth programming with a focus on the Internet as the initial instantiation of this programming. Also discussed are criteria relevant to the dissemination of eHealth programming in real-world settings. Finally, possible directions for future eHealth research are presented.

Retractions, press releases and newspaper coverage

OBJECTIVES

To explore how often newspapers cover the retraction of a medical journal article and whether newspaper coverage corresponds with the appearance of a press release about the retraction.

METHODS

Fifty citations were identified in PubMed that had been indexed with the Medical Subject Heading 'Retracted Publication'. Next, the archives of LexisNexis's 'Major Newspapers' and EurekAlert's press releases were searched to find references to those retracted publications.

RESULTS

Newspaper articles addressed exactly three of the 50 retracted publications, and press releases, exactly four of the 50 retracted publications. All three retracted publications that received newspaper coverage also had a press release. In other words, newspapers only covered a retraction that had been introduced by a press release.

CONCLUSION

One would expect that newspaper coverage would increase after a press release, but the suggested relationships among a medical journal article retraction, a press release and newspaper coverage should be further investigated. If the linkage suggested by the data of this study holds, and if newspaper coverage stimulates library patron interest, then a medical library might prepare itself for information requests following a press release.

"Is Cybermedicine Killing You?"--The story of a Cochrane disaster

This editorial briefly reviews the series of unfortunate events that led to the publication, dissemination, and eventual retraction of a flawed Cochrane systematic review on interactive health communication applications (IHCAs), which was widely reported in the media with headlines such as "Internet Makes Us Sick," "Knowledge May Be Hazardous to Web Consumers' Health," "Too Much Advice Can Be Bad for Your Health," "Click to Get Sick?" and even "Is Cybermedicine Killing You?" While the media attention helped to speed up the identification of errors, leading to a retraction of the review after only 13 days, a paper published in this issue of JMIR by Rada shows that the retraction, in contrast to the original review, remained largely unnoticed by the public. We discuss the three flaws of the review, which include (1) data extraction and coding errors, (2) the pooling of heterogeneous studies, and (3) a problematic and ambiguous scope and, possibly, some overlooked studies. We then discuss "retraction ethics" for researchers, editors/publishers, and journalists. Researchers and editors should, in the case of retractions, match the aggressiveness of the original dissemination campaign if errors are detected. It is argued that researchers and their organizations may have an ethical obligation to track down journalists who reported stories on the basis of a flawed study and to specifically ask them to publish an article indicating the error. Journalists should respond to errors or retractions with reports that have the same prominence as the original story. Finally, we look at some of the lessons for the Cochrane Collaboration, which include (1) improving the peer-review system by routinely sending out pre-prints to authors of the original studies, (2) avoiding downplay of the magnitude of errors if they occur, (3) addressing the usability issues of RevMan, and (4) making critical articles such as retraction notices open access.