Both the #Lancetgate paper and the NEJM paper retracted. So what are the consequences for those who perpetrated and propagated what seems to be major scientific fraud in the midst of the worst global health crisis of the last century? Unfortunately, probably nothing 1/8
That’s an indication from @richardhorton1 about the approach the Lancet will be taking, and my Twitter feed is full of threads suggesting that the retractions are an indication of a functional system, or even that the authors should be “commended” on their retraction 2/8
I agree fully with @richardhorton1 that lessons need to be learnt, and look forward to seeing a transparent explanation from @TheLancet and @NEJM about why their editorial and peer review process failed so profoundly in this instance (and a bit of contrition would be nice) 3/8
But I think there do also have to be consequences. This looks like intentional fraud, not a mistake. The authors signed declarations that they had full access to the data and took responsibility for the decision to publish, so ignorance about their own data is not an excuse 4/8 
The 3 senior investigators at prestigious institutions decided not to include any co-authors with statistical or global health expertise, or their junior colleagues and trainees. If they wanted to take all of the credit, then they also need to shoulder the blame 5/8
The running joke is that academic discourse is sometimes vicious because the stakes are so low. But here the stakes couldn’t be higher. Almost 6.5 million #COVID19 infections and 400K dead. Maintaining public confidence in science has never been more critical 6/8
The #Lancetgate episode has damaged our credibility as a scientific community. And not calling it out is an affront to all of us who lose nights of sleep over a single data point, who check those CRFs one more time, repeat that experiment just to be sure, rerun the analysis 7/8
Despite the huge divisions and politicization of #COVID19, almost everyone knows that @JeremyFarrar is right - science is our only exit strategy. But for this to work we need to maintain public trust. We need to be seen to be accountable. We need to do the science right. 8/8
