What happened after publication
In this paper by Attar and colleagues (BMJ 2025;391:e083382, doi:10.1136/bmj-2024-083382, published 29 October 2025), The BMJ was alerted to post-publication discussion raising concerns about a variety of issues; some issues were apparent from the data that support the paper, and are linked to from the article. Examples of the issues identified include irregularities in the data, concern about the inclusion of participants who did not meet the age criteria specified in the study, and concerns about undeclared conflicts of interest and authorship.
Reason for expressing concern
The editors judge that the trial may have breached accepted practices and that the results may not be reliable.
Further actions
The BMJ’s content integrity team will take up the concerns with the authors, and investigate fully—involving institutions and regulatory authorities as necessary. The authors have informed the journal that an auditable replacement dataset has been prepared and will be made available to The BMJ. The BMJ will update this notice and make a decision about what post-publication change to the content is needed.
