Subject: 1985 AIDS Study On Blood Clotting Retracted
Date: Published: 11/21/91 (39 lines)
Source:  Wall Street Journal.  Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc. 

    Technology:
    AIDS Study of 1985
    On Blood Clotting
    Has Been Retracted

    SAN FRANCISCO -- The University of California at San
 Francisco has retracted a six-year-old AIDS study because key
 data undermining its conclusions were withheld, university
 officials said.
    The retraction, published in this week's issue of the New
 England Journal of Medicine, said the 1985 study purported to
 show that AIDS patients produce a unique antibody attacking
 their own blood platelets, the particles that promote normal
 clotting.  The report ascribed the clotting disorders of AIDS
 to this mechanism.
    What the original research didn't disclose was that some
 people in the healthy, uninfected control group also produced
 the antibody -- a fact damaging to the original thesis.  The
 work, which was described as basic research, didn't cause
 harm to any patients or research volunteers, the university
 said.
    The retraction was signed by three researchers and a
 university administrator who alleged a colleague had withheld
 data.  A fourth researcher, Dr. Raphael Stricker, refused to
 sign the retraction, arguing that no data was withheld.
    Dr. Stricker, who left UCSF and currently works at
 California Pacific Medical Center here, said in an interview
 he is weighing legal action against the university.
    "I think the retraction is a misrepresentation of what
 happened," he said in a telephone interview.  "The data were
 correct, and there's no issue of withholding data."

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