Retraction Watch

Retracted HPV vaccine article – Shaw and Tomljenovic are back

by Michael Simpson
2020-09-27
Cancer, Christopher Shaw, HPV vaccine, Vaccines

Earlier this year, I wrote a post about a retracted HPV vaccine article, “Behavioral abnormalities in young female mice following administration of aluminum adjuvants and the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine Gardasil,” published in the one of the top journals in the field, Vaccine. This article was authored by, among others, the leading lights of the academic side of the anti-vaccine movement – Christopher Shaw, Lucija Tomljenovic and Yehuda Schoenfeld. In particular, Shaw and Tomljenovic seem to have an obsession with the HPV vaccine.

After withering criticism across the field, especially since the article was published in a prestigious, high impact factor journal, the editors at Vaccine decided to withdraw the article:

This article has been withdrawn at the request of the Editor-in-Chief due to serious concerns regarding the scientific soundness of the article. Review by the Editor-in-Chief and evaluation by outside experts, confirmed that the methodology is seriously flawed, and the claims that the article makes are unjustified. As an international peer-reviewed journal we believe it is our duty to withdraw the article from further circulation, and to notify the community of this issue.

The paper no longer exists in chronicles of Vaccine – about the best outcome possible.

Unfortunately, despite the strong criticism of the HPV vaccine article’s methods, analysis and conclusions, another journal, Immunologic Research, published the article, with small changes, in July 2016. Nevertheless, the formerly retracted HPV vaccine article has the same issues that were discussed months ago. Nothing has changed.

Let’s take a look what the article said, what changes were made in un-retracting it, and what are still the valid criticisms.

GMO dangers – another published paper retracted UPDATE

The science of GMO dangers has been seriously overblown by activists that really have no science behind their beliefs. The safety of GMOs has really reached the point that almost all of the scientific evidence is firmly on the side of the safety of GMO crops and, by extension, foods. Beyond that, the scientific consensus of respected scientific organizations across the world have come to the conclusion that the body of evidence supports the safety of GMO foods. And that GMO crops, which have been around for 10,000 years, are necessary to feed the people of this planet.

Nevertheless, the activists who continue to push the GMO dangers trope continue with their bad science. A few years ago, an article by Gilles-Eric Séralini was published which trumpeted the belief that GMOs cause cancer. That article was widely ridiculed and criticized by scientists across the world. Eventually, because of bad study design, terrible statistics, and harsh criticism of the conclusions, the journal that published the article retracted it.

It’s clear, at least to me, that when a side of a sociopolitical debate lacks scientific evidence, such as the anti-GMO side, they grab at anything, including Séralini’s retracted study, in an attempt to cherry-pick themselves into scientific legitimacy. And it’s happened again.

Anti-GMO articles retracted – shocking news

I’ve written this about 1 million times online (give or take 990,000) – the only thing that matters in science is evidence. Not opinion, not anecdotes, not bad research. The science that supports the safety and productivity of GMO crops is overwhelming, while one more of the anti-GMO articles has been retracted.

Science wins. And I guess lies and manufactured data don’t.

If this sounds familiar, it is. I wrote about a few weeks ago, discussing a paper, by Federico Infascelli and other colleagues, an animal nutrition researcher at the University of Naples in Italy, who attempted to show that GMO soybeans consumed by female goats could pass modified genes into the blood and organs of baby goats.

According to an article in Retraction Watch, there was a lot more going on. The good people at Retraction Watch translated an article in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, which claimed that “an investigation suggests that Infascelli has manipulated images to suggest GMOs are harmful. He could face fines and be suspended from the university.”

Retraction Watch also that La Repubblica “also reported that a committee appointed by the rector of the university, Gaetano Manfredi, found errors in Infascelli’s data that suggested he had manipulated the results to show GMOs were harmful.”

And Infascelli’s research improprieties continue to grow.