Eleven papers corrected after nutrition prof fails to disclose patent, company ties

Eight journals have corrected a total of eleven papers after one of the authors failed to list potential financial conflicts of interest. Two additional journals have also told Retraction Watch that they plan to issue corrections, which will bring the total to 13 or more.

Stuart Phillips is a professor and director of the Centre for Nutrition, Exercise, and Health Research at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. The corrected studies — which now reflect Phillips’ links to companies or patents — are all related to his research on nutritional supplements and exercise. 

One journal, Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, issued a single correction for four studies authored by Phillips:

Dr. Stuart M. Phillips is listed as an inventor on patent (Canadian) 3052324 issued to Exerkine, and a patent (US) 16/182891 pending to Exerkine (but reports no financial gains). Dr. Phillips reports personal fees from Enhanced Recovery (donated to charity), equity from Exerkine (all proceeds donated to charity), outside the submitted work.

Exerkine is a biotechnology company in Ontario developing therapies for aging, according to its website. Enhanced Recovery is a sports drink containing whey protein, collagen and leucine.

Together, the corrected articles have been cited at least 72 times, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science. A study in PLOS ONE — “A whey protein-based multi-ingredient nutritional supplement stimulates gains in lean body mass and strength in healthy older men: A randomized controlled trial” — has been cited 41 times.

Here are the 11 papers that have received corrections so far:

• “Do multi-ingredient protein supplements augment resistance training-induced gains in skeletal muscle mass and strength? A systematic review and meta-analysis of 35 trials,” in British Journal of Sports Medicine.
• “A whey protein-based multi-ingredient nutritional supplement stimulates gains in lean body mass and strength in healthy older men: A randomized controlled trial,” in PLOS ONE.
• “Leucine metabolites do not attenuate training-induced inflammation in young resistance trained men,” in Journal of Sports Sciences.
• “Leucine metabolites do not enhance training-induced performance or muscle thickness,” in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise.
• “Equivalent hypertrophy and strength gains in β-hydroxy-β-methylbutyrate- or leucine-supplemented men,” in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise.
• “Lactalbumin, not collagen, augments muscle protein synthesis with aerobic exercise,” in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise.
• “Leucine supplementation has no further effect on training-induced muscle adaptations,” in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise.
• “A multi-ingredient nutritional supplement enhances exercise training-related reductions in markers of systemic inflammation in healthy older men,” in Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism.
• “A multi-ingredient nutritional supplement in combination with resistance exercise and high-intensity interval training improves cognitive function and increases N-3 index in healthy older men: A randomized controlled trial,” in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience.
• “Integrated myofibrillar protein synthesis in recovery from unaccustomed and accustomed resistance exercise with and without multi-ingredient supplementation in overweight older men,” in Frontiers in Nutrition.
• “Whey protein but not collagen peptides stimulate acute and longer-term muscle protein synthesis with and without resistance exercise in healthy older women: a randomized controlled trial,” in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

In response to an email from Retraction Watch, asking why details related to patents and company agreements were omitted from the studies, Phillips said:

Academic integrity is the foundation of research credibility and is very important to me. I am meticulous about disclosing any conflict of interest and after realizing that others might interpret my disclosure as incomplete, I shared additional information to be sure I was being as transparent as possible. I had not originally disclosed that I was part of a group of researchers who had received an equity position in another researcher’s start-up company after transferring our patent for a multi-ingredient supplement to his company. That position has not and may not ever yield any income for the other researchers or for me, but I realized it could be perceived as a potential conflict and wanted to be as transparent and proactive as possible.

Also, I have disclosed that I am on the scientific advisory board for a sports-drink company, Enhanced Recovery, for which I received an honorarium.

It is my belief that making such disclosures improves transparency and credibility. To be sure there can be no future concerns about these relationships, I have directed that my honorarium and my portion of any future potential income generated by the start-up that now owns the patent be directed to charity, and this directive is on file with both entities.

In a follow-up email, Phillips explained that “one journal has yet to accept disclosures” that he has filed, and that he “made the corrections because it’s the right thing to do. It was clearly my error, which deserves to be corrected.”

Retraction Watch also emailed two additional journals that had published Phillips’ work. Both journals plan to issue a correction.

One of those journals, Advances in Nutrition, will publish an erratum for a review authored by Phillips, according to editor-in-chief, Katherine Tucker. In an email to Retraction Watch, Tucker explained that the journal’s publisher, Oxford University Press, did not initially plan to issue an erratum, even after a “concerned reader” flagged the paper for not disclosing a patent application related to the work:

Yes, we did have some correspondence from a concerned reader about this, which I sent to our publisher, OUP, for consultation. Their response was as follows:

“If he had received the patent he would have needed to disclose it, even if he did not hold any rights or receive money from it. As he does not have a patent no action needs to be taken other the [sic] an editor replying to the reader.”

Even though Phillips “explained that he did not benefit financially” from the work, according to Tucker, she asked him to provide an erratum, to which he replied:

I respect the process of disclosure, believed I had nothing relevant to disclose at the time, but would be happy (if you deem it necessary) to make a retrospective disclosure of this patent. However, I think it is germane to describe my role in the patent (conducting the work) and my lack of ANY material gains from the patent itself.

Phillips ultimately wrote an erratum for the review, called “Optimizing Adult Protein Intake During Catabolic Health Conditions,” which was published in Advances in Nutrition on July 15, 2020, and has been cited once, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science. The erratum will be published soon, according to Tucker, and reads:

Dr. Phillips reports personal fees from Enhanced Recovery, equity from Exerkine, outside the submitted work;  In addition, Dr. Phillips has a patent 3052324 issued to Exerkine, and a patent 16/182891 pending to Exerkine.

Phillips has also published six articles in Nutrients since 2018. A conflict of interest is declared in two of them, but neither mentions a patent or company ties to Exerkine or Enhanced Recovery. In response to an email from Retraction Watch, asking if Nutrients plans to issue corrections for any of Phillips’ studies, the managing editor, Judy Hui, forwarded our message to a spokesperson for the publisher, MDPI, who said:

Thank you for your attention to Dr. Phillips’ publications in Nutrients. We are discussing with academic editor and publication ethic committee to issue corrections for some of Dr. Phillips’ articles.

Some of the corrections that have already been issued also appear inconsistent. Consider the study, “A multi-ingredient nutritional supplement enhances exercise training-related reductions in markers of systemic inflammation in healthy older men,” published in Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism. The correction reads:

The authors wish to correct the conflict of interest statement as follows: In addition, S.M.P. and G.P. were inventors on a Canadian patent 3052324 and US patent application 62/466,557. Both authors hold equity in Exerkine, the company that owns the patent. S.M.P. reports that all proceeds from his equity share of Exerkine are donated to charity.

A different study, “A whey protein-based multi-ingredient nutritional supplement stimulates gains in lean body mass and strength in healthy older men: A randomized controlled trial,” in PLOS ONE, was also corrected. The study uses the same ‘multi-ingredient nutritional supplement,’ but Phillips does not disclose an equity stake in Exerkine in the updated conflict of interest statement:

The following information is missing from the Competing Interests statement: A preliminary patent application was filed by McMaster University on behalf of SMP and GP prior to publication. The rights to this patent are now assigned to Exerkine Corporation for the multi-nutrient supplement used in this study. This patent is now published as International Patent No. WO/2018/157258, September 7, 2018.

In 2018, ProPublica and The New York Times co-published a story about José Baselga, a cancer researcher at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, who failed to disclose financial conflicts of interest in dozens of papers. He told reporters, at the time, that he would correct 17 different articles. Baselga resigned from his post, and a few months later, Sloan Kettering announced that they would bar top executives from serving on the boards of drug companies.

Like Retraction Watch? You can make a tax-deductible contribution to support our work, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, add us to your RSS reader, or subscribe to our daily digest. If you find a retraction that’s not in our database, you can let us know here. For comments or feedback, email us at [email protected].