A highly regarded medical journal has decided to retract its 2016 study over suspicions that data for one article were derived from experiments on the organs of murdered political and religious prisoners in China.
The journal "Liver International" published a scientific article by Chinese surgeons on the safety of liver transplantation in which 563 cases of operations at Zhejiang University Hospital between 2010 and 2014 were reviewed.
Clinical ethicist Wendy Rogers from Macaria University in Sydney announced that she had sent a letter to the editor of the journal last month, calling for the paper to be retracted due to the "lack of credible evidence on ethical sourcing of organs", reports N1.
She emphasized that most transplanted livers in that study were taken from political or religious prisoners. Rogers believes that it is impossible to carry out such a large study without the organs of prisoners because one hospital is not able to obtain so many usable livers in a period of four years from heart patients and voluntary donors.
The editor-in-chief of the journal, Mario Mondelli, said after the letter from the Australian ethicist that he and the other editors came to the conclusion that the authors of the study must prove the ethical use of organs in their research.
He revealed that the authors were supposed to submit evidence by February 3, but they have not yet responded to the allegations.
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