Publication to Retract an Influential Water Study

Wall Street Journal, Peter Waldman
Published June 1, 2006

In a black eye for scientific publishing, the medical journal that published an influential study exonerating chromium-contaminated water from causing high rates of cancer in China is planning to retract the article. The study, published in 1997 under the names of two Chinese doctors, recanted the earlier findings by one of the same authors. That earlier study had reported a link between so-called hexavalent chromium in drinking water and elevated cancer rates in five villages in northeastern China -- a link later cited by U.S. regulatory agencies as a cause of concern. But as reported in a page-one article in The Wall Street Journal in December, the 1997 article was actually conceived, drafted and edited by consultants for PG&E Corp., which was embroiled in toxic-tort litigation over hexavalent-chromium contamination in California. The PG&E consultants submitted the 1997 article for publication without disclosing their own or PG&E's involvement in it to the journal that published it, the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. The omission gave the impression that the Chinese doctor recanted his findings on his own. In an email Wednesday to the journal's editorial board Paul Brandt-Rauf, the Columbia University professor who serves as the journal's editor, distributed the "Notice of Retraction" he intends to publish in the July issue. Retraction is necessary, the statement says, because the parties who submitted the article violated the journal's editorial rules by failing to disclose "financial and intellectual input" by outside parties. The statement added that the retraction is based solely on violations of editorial policy, that the contents of the article haven't been re-evaluated, and that "there is no evidence to suggest the existence of scientific fraud." The article was published under the names Zhang JianDong and Shukun Li. The firm that submitted the 1997 article was called ChemRisk, a unit at the time of now-defunct McLaren/Hart Inc. ChemRisk's founder, Dennis Paustenbach, declined yesterday to comment on the retraction. He and several scientists who worked on the 1997 article have testified in the toxic-tort litigation in California that they wanted to disclose their involvement in the paper but weren't asked to by Dr. Zhang, the named lead author, who was hired by ChemRisk to provide data for the article. Dr. Zhang is now deceased, but ChemRisk's translator, Tony Ye, said in an interview last year that he didn't recall Dr. Zhang ever telling ChemRisk that it couldn't disclose its involvement in the paper. The article's planned retraction comes as the result of a complaint submitted to the journal by Environmental Working Group, an advocacy organization based in Washington. In an interview, Renee Sharp, a scientist for the group, noted that Dr. Brandt-Rauf's retraction statement was accompanied by a note to the journal's board, saying that lawyers had kept his statement "to the barest minimum" of facts. "The evidence of fraud in the documents we obtained is overwhelming," Ms. Sharp said. "ChemRisk's so-called study has influenced a number of state and federal decisions on chromium, and those must also be reviewed." Dr. Paustenbach and others have said the article represents honest and sound science. A PG&E spokesman said its role should have been acknowledged when the article was published and that the utility supports "full transparency." Dr. Brandt-Rauf said the article's second named author, Dr. Li, had agreed to the retraction of the paper. "I believe she was not privy to what was really going on," said Dr. Brandt-Rauf. In an interview for this article in China, Dr. Li said "It's OK if they want to retract. I'm fine. It doesn't matter to me."