TibetanReview.net, Feb17’24) – A genetics journal from a leading scientific publisher in the United States has retracted 18 papers from China in what is seen as the biggest mass retraction of academic research due to concerns about human rights violations, reported theguardian.com Feb 15. It followed a lengthy investigation of allegations that DNA samples collected, including from Tibet and Xinjiang, could not have been free or fair given the circumstances in which they occurred.
The articles were published in Molecular Genetics & Genomic Medicine (MGGM), a genetics journal published by the US academic publishing company Wiley. They were retracted on Monday (Feb 12) after an agreement between the journal’s editor in chief, Suzanne Hart, and the publishing company, the report said.
This followed a review process that took over two years and in which investigators found “inconsistencies” between the research and the consent documentation provided by researchers.
The papers by different scientists are all based on research that draws on DNA samples collected from populations in the greater China territory of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). In several cases, the researchers used samples from populations deemed by experts and human rights campaigners to be vulnerable to exploitation and oppression in the PRC, leading to concerns that they would not be able to freely consent to such samples being taken, the report said.
Tellingly, several of the researchers were associated with public security authorities in the PRC, a fact that “voids any notion of free informed consent,” Yves Moreau, a professor of engineering at the University of Leuven, in Belgium, who focuses on DNA analysis, has said.
It was Moreau who first raised concerns about the papers with Hart, MGGM’s editor-in-chief, in Mar 2021.
One retracted paper has studied the DNA of Tibetans in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, using blood samples collected from 120 individuals. The research article was cited as saying “all individuals provided written informed consent” and that work was approved by the Fudan University ethics committee.
However, the retraction notice published on Feb 12 has stated that an ethical review “uncovered inconsistencies between the consent documentation and the research reported; the documentation was not sufficiently detailed to resolve the concerns raised.”
Xie Jianhui, the corresponding author on the study, is from the department of forensic medicine at Fudan University in Shanghai, and has not agree with the retraction.
Several of Xie’s co-authors are stated to be affiliated with the public security authorities in the PRC, including the public security authorities in Tibet.
Tibet is considered to be one of the most closely surveilled and tightly monitored regions in the PRC. In its most recent annual report, the campaign group Human Rights Watch said that the authorities “enforce severe restrictions on freedoms of religion, expression, movement and assembly” there, the report noted.
MGGM, seen as a mid-ranking genetics publication, is considered to be a relatively easy forum for publication, which may have been a draw for Chinese researchers looking to publish in English-language journals, David Curtis, a professor of genetics at University College London, has said.
MGGM primarily publishes studies on the medical applications of genetics, such as a recent paper on genetic disorders linked to hearing loss. The sudden pivot towards publishing forensic genetics research from China came as other forensic genetics journals started facing more scrutiny for publishing research based on DNA samples from vulnerable minorities in the PRC. Moreau has said. He argues that may have pushed more controversial research towards mid-ranking journals such as MGGM that do not specialize in forensic genetics.
The Wiley retractions was stated to have come days before a Chinese government deadline requiring universities to submit lists of all academic articles retracted in the past three years.
According to an analysis by Nature, nearly 14,000 retraction notices were published last year, of which three-quarters involved a Chinese co-author, the report said.