An article published in an international scientific journal by a group of academics from an İstanbul-based university during the COVID-19 pandemic has been withdrawn due to methodological errors in the experiments, including not obtaining patients’ consent, Birgün daily reported on Monday.
The article, one of some 10,000 withdrawn last year, was published in the European Journal of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID) by Associate Professor Dr. Ferhat Arslan and Prof. Dr. Haluk Vahaboğlu among other academics from the İstanbul Medeniyet University’s infectious diseases and clinical microbiology department.
It concerns a study in which patients were given hydroxychloroquine, a drug that was used in Turkey in the treatment of the coronavirus at the beginning of the pandemic but was later withdrawn, and an antiviral drug used in the treatment of HIV infections.
According to Birgün, the article was withdrawn following objections from the scientific community about ethical violations in the experiments mentioned in the article, such as failure to obtain the patients’ consent and the lack of an experimental control group.
Prof. Dr. Önder Ergönül, chair of the infectious diseases and clinical microbiology department at Koç University and an executive committee member of ESCMID, said the journal’s editor-in-chief decided to withdraw the article fearing it could mislead people, adding that the issue should also be examined by Turkey’s Higher Education Council (YÖK).
Among those who criticized the methodology of the experiments in a letter sent to the journal was Professor Banu Çakır, an epidemiologist specializing in research methodology from Hacettepe University’s Institute of Public Health, according to Ergönül.
He also stated that in the withdrawal note, the journal’s editor-in-chief said that although the consent for participation was waived during the study, they did not think “a waiver to be appropriate for a study of this nature.”
Professor Esin Davutoğlu Şenol, a specialist in infectious disease and clinical microbiology, also told Birgün that conducting a study without a patient’s consent is “a major ethical violation.”
“The article’s withdrawal is an embarrassing situation for Turkey. … The [health] ministry and YÖK should take immediate action, identify the patients and learn what happened to them,” she added.
The Turkish Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (KLIMIK) also issued a statement about the issue, emphasizing that the withdrawal of a study published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal is a “rare but extremely serious” situation and carries important lessons for the whole scientific world.