by special interest groups. this one was part of efforts to overturn the historic rowe versus wade decision. priscilla coleman herself has been an expert witness in more than 20 court cases. thank you ma am, you may have a seat for your comfort. but this now influential paper, linking abortion and poor mental health, has been controversial from the moment it was released in 2011. so a colleague of my brought my attention to the paper and said what do you think of this meta analysis? and i looked at it, and was really concerned. professorjulia littell is one of those who wrote to the britishjournal of psychiatry, which published this research, asking for it to be taken down. she points to guidelines for this kind of study, called amstar. because it does not meet those standards, we don t believe that the results are reliable or credible. in fact, julia littell says, out of 11 amstar criteria, priscilla coleman s paper doesn t meet any. i have never seen it before.
the reaction was negative. the journal s 2011 editor felt, despite flaws, it was important to have the paper s viewpoint expressed. when we approached professor coleman for comment, she emphasised her long experience publishing and sharing research. she argues there are no hard and fast rules for these studies, and her work met relevant recommendations. but with the research still influencing us health care in 2022, scientists who complained 11 years earlier were concerned. having deeply flawed manuscripts in the scientific literature emperils our ability to craft sound public policy. i gathered a group of scholars, who had previously published concerns about this paper, in response to the fact that the british journal of psychiatry platformed a new research integrity group. so we saw this as an opportunity to resubmit our concerns. priscilla coleman alleges criticism of her work is driven
all in all i would say we probably spent maybe about four, four months from june through december, investigating. the panel said professor coleman was unable to provide detail on how to replicate her paper s original findings. with the investigation ongoing, the journal told professor coleman they wanted to put a notice on her article to raise awareness of a possible problem. the response via her lawyer said she would take any and all legal options available, if that happened. professor coleman did start legal action against a differentjournal when it retracted another of her papers last december. so far those actions have been rejected by a swiss court. no notice of concern was placed on her 2011 paper, the panel continued its investigation. retracking paper is not something anyone should do lightly. retracting paper is not something anyone should do lightly. but we had, we had enough concerns to suggest it should be retracted, yes. was that unanimous among the panel? yes.
i think that will undermine confidence in the journal s ability to police the content that it publishes, that thejournal does not up hold editorial independence is probably not long for this world. we asked the royal college for an interview on whether the threat of legal action influenced their decision, they didn t comment on that, but what they did tell us was this. given the distance in time since the original article was published, the widely available public debate on the paper, including the letters including the letters of complaint already available alongside the article online, and the fact the article has been subject to a full investigation it has been decided to reject the request for the article to be retracted. the original complainants say they were surprised and disappointed. the response we got from thejournal had nothing do with the science of this article. not a thing. our specific complaints remain unanswered. today, professor coleman s paper still sits prominently
eriod. ., ~ i. , period. thank you. christine sounding period. thank you. christine sounding confident - period. thank you. christine sounding confident and i period. thank you. christine sounding confident and we | period. thank you. christine i sounding confident and we hope to catch up with david similar mondays in a moment or two, but for now, an investigation by newsnight and the bmj hasn t covered a rover over research of the impact on abortion on the melt oflet. on the mental health of women. the research is still being used in high profile us legal cases about women s access to abortion including the supreme court s decision to overturn roe vs wade a year ago. this programme has learned that an independent panel reviewing the paper, resigned from the britishjournal of psychiatry after their recommendation to withdraw it, was not followed. here s kate. this story ripples across the atlantic. in the us it asks whether public policy is based on sound research. without that, w