Retraction-Effect of vitamin and trace-element supplementation on immune responses and infection in elderly subjects

摘要

On Oct 6, 2015, we asked the Dean of Medicine of Memorial University, St John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, to conduct a formal investigation into the research by Dr Ranjit Kumar Chandra that culminated in his publication in The Lancet in 1992. Chandra gives Memorial University as his address in the 1992 paper, and Memorial University is also acknowledged as supporting the research through a University Research Professorship Award. We reopened our investigations into this paper because of documentation released into the public domain during a libel trial in Canada involving Chandra and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), which Chandra lost in July, 2015. Chandra has informed us that he is appealing against the judgment. The libel trial was about three programmes made by the CBC which raised concerns about Chandra's research, including the 1992 paper. Previous concerns about the 1992 publication were raised by Kenneth J Carpenter, Seth Roberts, and Saul Sternberg as documented in Correspondence in The Lancet in 2003, with a reply by Chandra; and when Nutrition retracted a paper by Chandra in 2005, which involved the same subjects as the 1992 Lancet paper.