Clinical course of cardiomyopathy in HIV-infected patients with or without encephalopathy related to the myocardial expression of tumour necrosis factor-alpha and nitric oxide synthase.

Abstract

Dear Reader, We wish to inform our readers that a serious question has come to our attention regarding a previously published article, ‘Clinical course of cardiomyopathy in HIV-infected patients with or without encephalopathy related to the myocardial expression of tumor necrosis factor-α and nitric oxide synthase', by Giuseppe Barbaro, et al., in AIDS 2002, 14: 827–838. This concern is the similarity of Figure 1 in the article by Grody et al. [1] to that published in the AIDS article as Figure 1b [2]. In the best interests of the scientific community, the corresponding author has voluntarily offered to withdraw Figure 1b from publication in order to guarantee the greatest transparency in his pending legal action in Italy involving the New England Journal of Medicine's retraction of an article containing a figure that has also been challenged as being similar to Figure 1 in the article by Grody et al. [1]. We have concluded that it would not be the proper response to solely retract the challenged portion of the article. If any portion of this article is not to be relied upon, then we will need to retract the entire article from AIDS. Dr. Barbaro, the corresponding author, continues to vouch for the originality of Figure 1b [2]. Accordingly, we are calling upon the Commission that the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Rome ‘‘La Sapienza’’ formed to investigate the events concerning the article published in the New England Journal of Medicine (1998; 339:1093–1099) to now conduct a similar investigation for the events concerning Figure 1b [2]. We will advise our readers as soon as we receive a response from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Rome ‘‘La Sapienza’'. Jay A. Levy, Brigitte Autran, Roel Coutinho, John P Phair Editors ofAIDS