Another study linking chronic fatigue syndrome with the mouse leukemia retrovirus XMRV has been retracted from the journal Science. According to the New York Times, it is the second time the journal has retracted such an article in the past two weeks.
Last week’s retraction involved a 2009 study that claimed chronic fatigue syndrome was associated to the retrovirus. Though the authors of the paper stood by their results, other scientists found the information dubious and had been having difficulty duplicating results.
Now this Monday, authors of a 2010 study from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences are voluntarily retracting their work, which claims chronic fatigue syndrome is also related to other retroviruses closely associated with XMRV.
According to the New York Times, the paper’s retraction dealt a heavy blow to supporters of the chronic fatigue syndrome-XMRV connection. The study was the only remaining, credible support of the original theory; its author list included scientists from the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health and Harvard Medical School.
The authors decided to retract their paper after “encouragement” from the journal. In their published statement, they said they chose to retract their paper because of inabilities by other labs to find similar results, as well as their own failure to find antibodies and identify integration sites for the affecting retroviruses on the human genome.
“It is our current view that the association of murine gamma retroviruses with C.F.S. has not withstood the test of time or of independent verification and that this association is now tenuous,” the authors said.
