Call us old-fashioned, but we think that if a group of authors set out to write an article about a viewpoint, they probably ought to share that viewpoint.
But that’s not the case with a bunch of researchers led by Tjaard Ubbo Hoogenraad, a neurologist in the Netherlands specializing in Alzheimer’s disease. The study, “A Viewpoint about the Treatment of Wilson’s Disease,” appeared in the July 2013 issue of the Canadian Journal of Neurological Sciences. (Wilson’s disease is a rare genetic disorder in which the body loses the ability to get rid of copper, which in turn accumulates with toxic effect in tissues.)
Evidently, that viewpoint wasn’t quite shared. According to the retraction notice:
The following article “A Viewpoint about the Treatment of Wilson’s Disease” by Abdul Qayyum Rana, Abolfazl Avan, Iqra Aftab, Wasim Mansoor and Tjaard Ubbo Hoogenraad, published in the Canadian Journal of Neurological Sciences 2013 Jul;40(4):612-614, has been retracted by agreement between the authors and the Editor-in-Chief, Robert Chen. The reason for the retraction is that two of the authors, Dr. Avan and Dr. Hoogenraad, indicated that they do not agree with the content and the publication of the article.
The original paper was accompanied by an editorial, “Treating neurological Wilson’s disease; the expert opinion is not good enough.” Apparently that was true for reasons the author didn’t realize.