Slashdot Mirror
Call for Retraction of 400 Scientific Papers On Organ Transplantation Amid Fears That Organs Came From Chinese Prisoners (theguardian.com)
A world-first study has called for the mass retraction of more than 400 scientific papers on organ transplantation, amid fears the organs were obtained unethically from Chinese prisoners. The Guardian reports: The Australian-led study exposes a mass failure of English language medical journals to comply with international ethical standards in place to ensure organ donors provide consent for transplantation. The study was published on Wednesday in the medical journal BMJ Open. Its author, the professor of clinical ethics Wendy Rogers, said journals, researchers and clinicians who used the research were complicit in "barbaric" methods of organ procurement.
"There's no real pressure from research leaders on China to be more transparent," Rogers, from Macquarie University in Sydney, said. "Everyone seems to say, 'It's not our job.' The world's silence on this barbaric issue must stop." A report published in 2016 found a large discrepancy between official transplant figures from the Chinese government and the number of transplants reported by hospitals. While the government says 10,000 transplants occur each year, hospital data shows between 60,000 to 100,000 organs are transplanted each year. The report provides evidence that this gap is being made up by executed prisoners of conscience.
"There's no real pressure from research leaders on China to be more transparent," Rogers, from Macquarie University in Sydney, said. "Everyone seems to say, 'It's not our job.' The world's silence on this barbaric issue must stop." A report published in 2016 found a large discrepancy between official transplant figures from the Chinese government and the number of transplants reported by hospitals. While the government says 10,000 transplants occur each year, hospital data shows between 60,000 to 100,000 organs are transplanted each year. The report provides evidence that this gap is being made up by executed prisoners of conscience.
...was many centuries ago however... The science is still valid though which is what matters...
Unless the papers were on ethics of organ translation, why would they need to be retracted, is the research any less valid just because research involved unethically obtained organs? Papers usually get retracted if the contents are bs, fabrication or plagiarism, not for an ethics problem with the research itself. Science is practical like that, what is true is true, what is false is false, ethics are a completely separate topic.
The studies were observational of outcomes of transplantations already done, it's not like the study authors incentivized the chinese corrupt hospital system to procure more illegal transplants. Equating them to nazis, who actually butchered people with science as motivator (or pretext) seems more like an alarmist ruse rather than anything to do with ethics.
This boycott won't change anything about unethical transplantations being done because the study is not an incentive for being unethical, they merely piggyback on shitty things which are happening.
More so it is hilarious that "professor of ethics" should be keenly aware of arrows of causality in ethics. Exploiting something for can't otherwise change isn't unethical, on the contrary, it's making the best out of a shitty situation.