2023-04-20 12:00:11
Lab life. Can we carry out, for more than twenty years in France, research based on medical and legal records without having obtained authorization from the regulatory authorities, or informed the patients concerned of the use of their data? These questions are posed by a recent, seemingly banal case of article retraction.
On March 9, the review Child’s Nervous System (Springer group) withdrew the publication of a French team, published on October 4, 2021, on the grounds that “Contrary to what is stated in the article, the authors were unable to provide documents confirming that the study was ethically approved”. Presented as prospective and observational, it analyzed the characteristics of head trauma inflicted on infants and, in particular, shaken baby syndrome (SBS) treated at Lille University Hospital between 2001 and 2021, depending on whether or not of confessions by the alleged perpetrators by the judicial inquiry. Neurosurgeon Matthieu Vinchon, first author, and his colleagues conclude that these head injuries are quite often (39% of cases) confirmed by a confession, “which indicates that the diagnostic criteria are robust”. This publication is in line with the work of Professor Vinchon, head of the pediatric neurosurgery department of the Lille University Hospital and today in Lyon.
SBS, the cause of legal proceedings, is at the heart of a virulent scientific controversy. The studies by Matthieu Vinchon and others are contested by part of the international scientific community, which believes that the diagnosis is made with unsound criteria, leading to wrongly accusing parents or nannies of brain damage arising from causes natural.
Before being retracted, the article of Child’s Nervous System had also been the subject of strong criticism on the merits, published in the journal, from two Swedish researchers, co-authors in 2016 of a report on SBS for a Swedish agency, equivalent to the High Authority for Health. However, this is not the reason for the withdrawal, decided for lack of green light from an ethics committee. Matthieu Vinchon specifies that the authorization was requested from him by the newspaper when submitting the article, and that he turned to the committee for the protection of persons (CPP) Nord-Ouest IV. In an exchange of emails that we were able to consult, the vice-president of this CPP wrote to him, on September 27, 2021, that “as the committee has doubts about the usefulness of this study and the viability of its conclusion”il “is not favorable on the ethical aspect”. However, he continues, “the question is not to give a favorable or unfavorable opinion about this project since it would seem that the study has already been carried out”.
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