VALSARTAN: Harakiri a la investigación Novartis...en Japón.

The Lancet has formally retracted the Jikei Heart Study paper, originally published in 2007. The retraction had been widely anticipated for more than a month, after a series of news reports in Japan made it clear that the long-simmering controversy over scientific misconduct involving the Novartis blood pressure lowering drug valsartan (Diovan) had come to a full boil. (See our earlier story here.) 

As reported previously, the current scandal first began to unfold in late 2011 when a Japanese blogger pointed to a number of apparent errors in publications authored by Hiroaki Matsubara. This ultimately led to a series of retractions of Matsubara’s papers and the retraction of the main paper of the Kyoto Heart Study itself by the European Heart Journal. 

In the notice of retraction, the Lancet editors outline the chronology of the case, stating that shortly after publication of the Jikei Heart Study in the Lancet they first became aware of concerns in Japan about both the Jikei and the Kyoto Heart studies, both of which studied valsartan and had shared several authors. However, despite the publication of a letter questioning the statistics of the Jikei Heart Study, no further actions were taken until earlier this year. (Más)

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NOVARTIS: A dónde van con DIOVAN...? (I): Diovan trials may have been run by Novartis staff