Autism sleep examine pulled due to knowledge errors | Spectrum
Data breach: Upon release, researchers discovered flaws that undermined their conclusions about autism, sleep, and vitamin A.
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A study linking low vitamin A levels to sleep disorders in autistic children was withdrawn this month after the authors discovered “fundamental errors” in their data.
The study, published July 3 in BMC Pediatrics – a journal published by Springer Nature – included 856 autistic children and 316 control subjects. It suggested that autistic children had more trouble sleeping and lower blood levels of vitamin A than their non-autistic peers.
But after the study was published, the researchers discovered errors in the two tables of key data of the paper that undermined the paper’s conclusions, the journal’s withdrawal notice. The researchers, jointly led by Tingyu Li of Chongqing Medical University Children’s Hospital in China and Xue Ming, professor of neurology at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey, asked the journal to publish the paper. Of the 10 researchers in the team, 4 did not respond to notifications from the Journal about the revocation, according to the revocation notice.
Investigators also made changes to their study protocol after it received approval from the institutional review board, and they did not provide any requested evidence to prove that the panels approved the changes, raising ethical concerns, the notice of withdrawal said.
The revocation was due to both data errors and ethical concerns, said a spokesman for Spectrum magazine in an email. The spokesman declined to provide further details, citing the confidentiality of the journal’s investigation.
Investigators did not respond to Spectrum’s request for comment.
The plant was withdrawn on December 3rd. According to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science, it hadn’t been quoted prior to its withdrawal.
Cite this article: https://doi.org/10.53053/WNLH4040
