A paper suggesting that vitamin D may reduce the severity of COVID-19 symptoms has been retracted. ProSoneThis comes four years after the journal expressed concerns about the study.
The paper, “Vitamin D Sufficiency, Serum 25-Hydroxyvitamin D ≥ 30 ng/mL, Reduces the Risk of Poor Clinical Outcomes in Patients with COVID-19 Infection,” was published online on September 25, 2020. Michael F. Holick, professor of medicine at Boston University and advocate of vitamin D use, was the final author along with a group of other researchers from Tehran University of Medical Sciences in Iran.
The paper quickly gained traction on platforms like Twitter (now X) as evidence that vitamin D can treat COVID-19 symptoms.
During the discussion, scientific integrity researcher Nick Brown at Linnaeus University in Växjö, Sweden, and researcher Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz at the University of Wollongong in Australia pointed out potential flaws in the study, including its small sample size and a lack of patient information, such as how patients died.
ProSone On October 14, 2020, the journal published a statement of concern about the paper. According to the notice, “concerns were raised about the validity of the results and conclusions reported in the paper, as well as about undisclosed competing interests.” The statement also addressed “statements in the article, including the title and conclusions, that suggest a causal relationship between vitamin D levels and clinical outcomes of COVID-19 infection, but are not supported by data.”
Competing interests refer to Holick’s “non-financial interests based on vitamin D research and other activities focused on vitamin D, his contributions to an app that tracks vitamin D, and interests such as consulting, funding, and book writing related to the use of vitamin D.” The New York Times It reported on Holick’s financial ties to the vitamin D industry.
“This project was not grant-funded; Professor Holik has not received any funding for this project,” Mohammed Ali Saharian, the paper’s corresponding author, told Retraction Watch.
Regarding competing interests, Hollick said:
The app dminder.info is free. I do not earn any income from it. I am no longer a consultant to Quest Diagnostics and am not listed there. I have not received any book royalties related to the information in this publication. I have no conflict of interest with respect to any aspect of the study design, results or conclusions.
According to Clarivate Web of Science, the paper has been cited 189 times, the majority of which occurred after the concerns were raised.
Almost four years later, on June 6th, Pros One The study was retracted. ProSone According to the retraction notice, the editorial board determined that the study design was insufficient to address the research questions and that the methods used were not detailed enough to allow the study to be replicated. “We therefore conclude that the paper’s conclusions are not supported by the data reported,” the notice reads.
Sakharian said he and his colleagues were “deeply surprised” and “dismayed” by the retraction, and that “retraction should not be a decision made without ethical considerations.”
“These issues would have been better identified and addressed during the pre-publication review process rather than after the study was published,” Sakharian told Retraction Watch. “However, we are not claiming that vitamin D is causally related to clinical outcomes of COVID-19 infection. Our study is cross-sectional and only examined the association between COVID-19 and blood vitamin D levels.”
According to the notice, Holick, Sakharian and the first author of the paper do not agree to the retraction, but the other authors could not be reached. Sakharian said they disagreed because they provided detailed responses to the editorial board’s concerns multiple times but received no response from the journal.
“I believe it is unfair, unethical and inhumane to retract a paper solely because of negligence by the editorial team, rather than addressing the inherent flaws in the study itself,” he said.
David Knutson, Head of Communications Pros, “The authors’ comments that communication in this case was one-sided, and the suggestion that our editorial decisions were biased, are untrue,” it said.
Pros Knutton said he completed an objective evaluation and contacted the authors multiple times. He acknowledged there was a “long gap in communication with the authors from March 2021 to December 2023.” Pros They did not provide updates to the authors in response to inquiries about the retraction decision.
Meyerowitz-Katz said she had mixed feelings about the retraction: “The editorial team deserves credit for the effort they put into investigating. Retracting it for reasons of poor quality, rather than misconduct, shows a commitment to integrity that few journals show.”
But a retraction at this point “will have no effect on the contamination of the literature: the damage has already been done. Pros One “The editorial team should explain exactly why it took a pandemic-long time to reach a decision, given that the issues they cite as the reason for the retraction are the same issues I raised on Twitter in September 2020,” Meyerowitz-Katz said.
Brown said it would have been better if the retraction “had not taken so long”, but given the swiftness of the expression of concern, “I think overall the journal responded quite well”.
ProSone The researchers cited a backlog of ethics cases as the reason for the delay in retracting the paper along with others.
Mr Knutson said the case was “complex” and the four-year period reflected “the time it took to complete a rigorous assessment and investigation” as well as “internal delays due to competing priorities”.
Given the complexity of this case, the nature of the concerns and the potential clinical impact of the article and the concerns raised, we issued an Interim Expression of Concern shortly after the concerns were raised.
Knutson said the conflicts of interest mentioned in the statement were not relevant to the retraction of the paper. “The decision to retract was made based on concerns about the study design, methodological reporting, and reliability of the paper’s conclusions,” he said.
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