" Several of the researchers are associated with public security authorities in China, a fact that “voids any notion of free informed consent”, said Yves Moreau, a professor of engineering at the University of Leuven, in Belgium, who focuses on DNA analysis. Moreau first raised concerns about the papers with Hart, MGGM’s editor-in-chief, in March 2021.
One retracted paper studies the DNA of Tibetans in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, using blood samples collected from 120 individuals. The article stated that “all individuals provided written informed consent” and that work was approved by the Fudan University ethics committee.
But the retraction notice published on Monday stated that an ethical review “uncovered inconsistencies between the consent documentation and the research reported; the documentation was not sufficiently detailed to resolve the concerns raised”. "
Weird. So they had written consent forms for the blood samples, but the forms weren’t detailed enough(?), and anyway you can’t trust anyone associated with the Chinese gvmt? Is that what they’re saying?
This seems like weird reactionary virtue signalling.
@HorseRabbit I think “inconsistencies between the consent documentation and the research reported” could be anything from
- fewer consent forms than participants
- age and sex of consent form signatures don’t match participant cohort
- consent forms do not consent to an aspect of the research process
- consent forms from clearly illiterate subjects or indicate in some other way that subjects do not understand the nature of the research, and methodology does not deal with this.
Take for example that retracted study where the authors basically state that their research on Uighur DNA “might be useful for the police”..
If you said that about, say, African-Americans in a ghetto I think most people would be suspicious of the level of informed consent given and want to look into it.
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Researchers used samples from populations deemed by experts and campaigners to be vulnerable to exploitation, including Uyghurs and Tibetans
By this logic, said genetics journal should retract all papers which used samples from black people in the United States and Europe.
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
Several of the researchers are associated with public security authorities in China, a fact that “voids any notion of free informed consent”, said Yves Moreau, a professor of engineering at the University of Leuven, in Belgium, who focuses on DNA analysis.
The article stated that “all individuals provided written informed consent” and that work was approved by the Fudan University ethics committee.
In Human Rights Watch’s most recent annual report, the campaign group said that the authorities “enforce severe restrictions on freedoms of religion, expression, movement, and assembly”.
It is considered to be a relatively easy forum for publication, which may have been a draw for Chinese researchers looking to publish in English-language journals, said David Curtis, a professor of genetics at University College London.
Curtis resigned from his position as editor-in-chief of Annals of Human Genetics, another Wiley journal, after the publisher vetoed a call to consider boycotting Chinese science because of ethical concerns, including those relating to DNA collection.
In 2023, Elsevier, a Dutch academic publisher, retracted an article based on blood and saliva samples from Uyghur and Kazakh people living in Xinjiang, a region in north-west China where there are also widespread reports of human rights abuses.
The original article contains 929 words, the summary contains 200 words. Saved 78%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
