Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Paper retracted for breaking publication embargoes on open data

Randy Schekman, PNAS takes action regarding breach of NIH embargo policy on a PNAS paper, editorial, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, September 18, 2009.

After the paper titled "PKNOX2 gene is significantly associated with substance dependence in European-origin women," by Xiang Chen, Kelly Cho, Burton H. Singer, and Heping Zhang, published online August 31, 2009 in PNAS, our editors became aware that Dr. Zhang had signed a Data Use Certification indicating his agreement to comply with the NIH Genome-Wide Association Studies Policy for Data Sharing, which applies to the Gene Environment Association (GENEVA) studies, of which the Study of Addiction, Genetics and Environment (SAGE) is a part. Under the policy, investigators agree not to submit findings of the SAGE dataset(s) for publication until September 23, 2009. The PNAS publication clearly violates the SAGE embargo, and the authors agreed to retract their work in PNAS on September 9, 2009. ...

This oversight does a disservice to the SAGE investigators on this National Human Genome Research Institute-funded genetic study of addiction, the other investigators who abided by the NIH embargo, and the scientific community. ...

Alan E. Guttmacher, Elizabeth G. Nabel, and Francis S. Collins, Why data-sharing policies matter, editorial, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, September 18, 2009.

... Numerous examples of broad data sharing, ranging from the Human Genome Project, to the Framingham Heart Study, to the myriad genomewide association studies deposited in the dbGaP database of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), offer compelling testimony to how broad access accelerates and empowers scientific investigation to benefit society.

However, for both ethical reasons and the purely practical concern of making broad data access workable, it is vital to recognize and protect both participants’ and investigators’ interests. ...

The interests of the investigator who places data in an accessible database also require protection. The major available protection is the guarantee of a period of exclusivity in submission of abstracts and publications for a number of months (usually 6 to 12). This exclusive period is assured by allowing data access only to end users who agree to abide by it. ...

With these principles in mind and after considerable public input, the NIH implemented a "Policy for Sharing of Data Obtained in NIH Supported or Conducted Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWAS)". This policy provides guidance for researchers who are interested in accessing data from the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) database dbGaP, requiring recipient investigators and their institutional officials to sign an agreement (the Data Use Certification) by which they will comply with the terms of data access, including a 12-month period of exclusivity. ...

[The] research community that must police itself and prevent inappropriate publication in the future. This will require that recipient users of community data resources be fully aware of data use limitations to which they agree and be scrupulous in honoring them. It will require that reviewers question whether data access terms have been followed in submitted manuscripts. It will require that publishers ensure that authors observe the same level of ethical behavior for data access as for conflict of interest or research misconduct. It will require that the NIH design effective strategies for alerting the research community to this issue and implement steps that make breaches difficult to commit and easy to discover. ...