Nutrition retracts 2001 paper

Nutrition this month retracted a 2001 paper by immunologist Ranjit Chandra that claimed a specific combination of vitamins and minerals significantly improved seniors' ability to think and reason.

Editor Michael Meguid wrote that the journal was "forced to act" after a series of "serious questions" were raised. The retraction outlines eight specific reasons for the decision, "all of which [Chandra] either ignored or dealt with inadequately in his responses to his critics," according to Meguid, over whose signature the withdrawal appears.

The retraction cited significant statistical errors in Chandra's Nutrition study. It also cited errors in his 1992 study in The Lancet, which the 2001 study followed. Among other concerns were that while Chandra claimed that the participating subjects were normal, "the average MMSE score reported placed them below normal, in the demented category" and that while assignment of subjects to the placebo and supplement groups was said to be...