BMJ Group retracts paper on COVID-19 vaccines and mortality featured in Senate hearing
BMJ Public Health has retracted a paper some — including a witness at a recent U.S. Senate subcommittee hearing — have used to link COVID-19 vaccines to deaths. The action comes more than two years after a researcher cited in the work flagged issues with the study. Published May 6, 2024, the paper used the … Continue reading BMJ Group retracts paper on COVID-19 vaccines and mortality featured in…
The BMJ Group has retracted a paper that was featured in a recent U.S. Senate subcommittee hearing, linking COVID-19 vaccines to deaths. The paper, published on May 6, 2024, used databases to examine COVID-19 related deaths during the height of the pandemic. Despite an expression of concern and an institutional investigation by the Princess Máxima Center in the Netherlands, the paper was retracted due to "misinformation in the discussion regarding the possible causes of excess mortality, and because the limited nature of the original work by the authors was not sufficiently described."
Three of the four authors, including the corresponding author Saskia Mostert, worked at the Princess Máxima Center. Mostert resigned in 2024 after the investigation, claiming the paper was "ignored by the journal" and that the investigation violated academic freedom and constituted censorship. The paper was cited 21 times in 2024 and is listed in the top 5% of research outputs by Altmetrics.
Written by urgent.news from Retraction Watch's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
