CLINICAL PRACTICE

The Chronic Fatigue Retraction: Good Science Takes Time

It was a long time coming: a journal retracts a controversial 2009 paper linking a virus to chronic fatigue. The good news? Faulty data can't hide.

By ALICE PARK | @aliceparkny | December 22, 2011

It’s been a tough week for the editors of the venerable journal Science.

First came the controversy surrounding their decision, at the request of government security officials, to omit key details in a paper describing how researchers had managed to create an aerosolized form of the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus. The government feared that such research could fall into the wrong hands and fuel a bioterror attempt.

Then, on Thursday came the difficult decision to retract a 2009 paper describing how a virus could be responsible for chronic fatigue syndrome. The retraction wasn’t a complete surprise, however, since the authors of the paper had already partially retracted some of its results, and many other follow-up studies had cast serious doubt on its findings./.../