FLICKR, IRRIIn hopes of preventing the retraction of her 2012 paper in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, which led to much controversy regarding whether the researchers used proper consenting practices to enroll the 24 children participants of the study, nutrition scientist Guangwen Tang is suing the American Society for Nutrition (ASN) and her institution, Tufts University, ScienceInsider reported last week (July 17).
The study involved testing the effects of the genetically modified (GM) rice called golden rice that aim to fight vitamin A-deficiency in school-aged Chinese children; the researchers wanted to determine how efficiently β-carotene is converted into the essential vitamin. Soon, accusations flew that the group had not gone through the proper consenting processes. That December, the Chinese Centre for Disease Control (CDC) fired the three China-based authors and offered financial compensation to the parents of the study participants. Tang retired from Tufts University the following September after an internal investigation that the research was not conducted “in full compliance with IRB [institutional review board] policy or federal regulations.”
Now, the ASN wants to withdraw the paper, but Tang argued in a Massachusetts court this month ...
