NEJM letter retracted over authorship

The New England Journal of Medicine this month retracted a letter from the January 25, 2007 issue following suggestions that two of its co-authors did not collaborate on the content.The correspondence was attributed to authors Hadi Meeran Hussain of the Military Hospital in Rawalpindi, Pakistan; Matthew Hotopf of King's College, London; and Femi Oyebode of the Queen Elizabeth Psychiatric Hospital in Birmingham, UK.The recent retraction notice included a short statement by Hussain, the first author, who wrote he requested the article be removed "because there has been concern about the provenance and authorship." In fact, said NEJM spokesperson Karen Pederson, "there was some concern as to whether the two UK authors listed were actually involved."The letter in question commented on a paper that appeared in the NEJM last October investigating the use of atypical antipsychotic medications in Alzheimer's patients. Psychiatrist Lon S. Schneider of the University of Southern California and his colleagues concluded that adverse effects of such drugs offset their advantages when treating Alzheimer's patients with psychosis, aggression, and agitation. The retracted letter, just three paragraphs long, pointed to some possible limitations of the study and suggested that atypical antipsychotic drugs may be beneficial after non-neuroleptic medications had been ruled out. "The contents of the letter seemed reasonable," Schneider told The Scientist. "The letter raised some clinical points that we responded to" in an author's reply printed in the same January 25 issue. Schneider said he had not been informed of the retraction by the NEJM and did not know the reason for it.In an Email to The Scientist, Hussain identified himself as an anti-terrorism expert who studies the psychology of suicide and self-harm, particularly in the cases of suicide bombers. In that capacity, he said, he traveled to a number of conferences in the UK where he became acquainted with several psychologists, including the two scientists he claimed he collaborated with on the letter. Although Hussain said he did not have expertise in treating Alzheimer's patients, he has researched antipsychotic drugs, and was interested in Schneider's study in light of this experience. "I read the article under discussion and became concerned about several limitations in the study, and collaborated with the [co-authors of the letter] via telephonic communication," he said.Hussain claimed that when providing information to NEJM, he accidentally reported the wrong professional affiliation for co-author Hotopf. Hussain said he collaborated with a UK psychiatrist named Mathew Hotopf, but when looking up his credentials online, he inadvertently confused him with Matthew Hotopf of King's College. Hussain did not respond to requests to provide the other Hotopf's professional affiliation or contact information. It's also unclear if Oyebode played any role in the letter. A colleague of Oyebode's at the Queen Elizabeth Psychiatric Hospital who requested not to be named told The Scientist that Oyebode had not collaborated on the letter and in fact had no recollection of ever having met Hussain. "He was pretty shocked by it," his colleague said.According to Hussain, he phoned both Hotopf of King's College and Oyebode to explain the misunderstanding, but his messages were not returned. "After three futile tries I decided to withdraw the letter on my own behalf," he wrote.Hussain said that "laws regarding plagiarism and ethical misconduct are very strict in UK." He surmised that after the wrong Hotopf was cited and questions were raised about the letter's provenance, the authors tried to distance themselves from the letter to avoid an "embarrassing situation."Both Matthew Hotopf (of King's College) and the third author, Oyebode, were traveling and neither could be reached for comment by deadline. Kirsten Weir mail@the-scientist.comCorrection (Posted May 8): When originally posted, the story identified Lon S. Schneider as a psychologist. He is a psychiatrist. The Scientist regrets the error.Links within this article:Retraction: Hussain HM, Hotopf M, Oyebode F. "Atypical antipsychotic drugs and Alzheimer's disease." New England Journal of Medicine, 2007;356:416. http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/356/14/1481Matthew Hotopf http://internal.iop.kcl.ac.uk/ipublic/staff/profile/external.aspx?go=10463A. Gawrylewski, "Your guide to retractions and non-retraction retractions," The Scientist, March 2007. http://www.the-scientist.com/2007/3/1/37/1Schneider LS, et al, "Effectiveness of atypical antipsychotic drugs in patients with Alzheimer's disease." New England Journal of Medicine, 2006:1525-1538. 'http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/abstract/355/15/1525Lon Schneider http://www.usc.edu/health/usccare/faculty/faculty2820.html

NEJM letter retracted over authorship

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