The US journal Science this week published a retraction of a research article that it published last year on the drug 3,4-meth-ylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, or “ecstasy”) (Science 2002. ;297: 2260-3), a move that has prompted questions about the peer review process.
In this week's issue of Science (12 September), researchers from Johns Hopkins University admitted the results of their paper—“Severe dopaminergic neurotoxicity in primates after a common recreational dose regimen of MDMA ('ecstasy')”—were invalid.
Nine of 10 animals in the study had been given the wrong drug—methamphetamine instead of MDMA—owing to the incorrect labelling of a bottle, Dr George Ricaurte and colleagues write (www.sciencemag.org).
In the original paper, the team said doses of MDMA similar to those used recreationally were severely damaging to dopaminergic neurons, something that had not been seen before. In their retraction they note that the combination of dopaminergic and serotonergic neurotoxicity that they found would be quite expected with methamphetamine.
Professor Colin Blakemore, the chief executive designate of the Medical Research Council, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the retraction raised concerns about how the paper got into print.
“There is this supposedly rigorous process of peer review. It's very hard to see how that process operated properly in the case of this article,” he said.
Professor Blakemore said he had previously queried the journal because 40% of animals in the study either died or were so close to death that they had to be withdrawn.
“Whatever one thinks of the toxicity of ecstasy, 40% of young people using it every weekend are not dying. It's that sort of thing that should not have got past referees.”
The journal's view, on the other hand, is that the problem “would have been almost impossible to pick up with peer review,” according to a statement from Dr Katrina Kelner, deputy managing editor for life sciences at Science.
She commended the authors for so thoroughly investigating their conflicting data, saying: “For every scientist, one of the main responsibilities is to the accuracy of information in the peer reviewed literature.”
“It is the policy of our journal to set the record straight whenever a research article is later found to be flawed,” she added.
An article in the New York Times said that unnamed critics have accused Dr Ricaurte of “rushing his results into print” because legislation designed to curb ecstasy use was before the US Congress.
Dr Ricaurte told the newspaper that the accusation was “ludicrous.” His laboratory made a “simple human error,” he said.
After a series of controversies involving peer review, Britain's Royal Society recently launched an investigation, chaired by Patrick Bateson, professor of ethology at Cambridge.
Professor Bateson said last month that peer review has been criticised for being too secretive, and that some have suggested it provides a way for the establishment to prevent the airing of unorthodox ideas.
“We want to see if any evidence supports such a claim,” he said.