Editorial expression of concern regarding: Pilger A et al. (2004) No effects of intermittent 50 Hz EMF on cytoplasmic free calcium and on the mitochondrial membrane potential in human diploid fibroblasts, Radiat Environ Biophys 43:203-207.

Abstract

In 2004, Radiation and Environmental Biophysics published a manuscript showing no effects of intermittent 50 Hz electromagnetic fields (EMF) on cytoplasmic free calcium and the mitochondrial membrane potential, while a significant effect of the EMF on DNA breakage as measured by comet assay was reported (Pilger et al. 2004). This manuscript resulted from a collaboration between a group at the Medical University of Vienna headed by H.W. Rudiger and a group at the University of Hannover headed by H.-A. Kolb. A Letter to the Editor by A. Lerchl, which we received in May 2009, raised serious questions concerning the extremely small standard deviations of the data on DNA damage induced by EMF exposure, as shown in figure 1 of Pilger et al. (2004). We asked two experts on biostatistics whether or not the suspicion expressed by A. Lerchl is justified. The reviewers conceded that indeed the standard deviations are suspiciously low, but that the raw data have to be examined before scientific misconduct can unequivocally be proven. Based on their opinion, we decided (1) to follow the procedure suggested by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) (http://publicationethics.org/ files/u2/03B_Fabrication_Published.pdf) in case of suspected data fabrication and (2) to ask A. Lerchl for some minor editorial revisions of his Letter aiming at clarifying his line of arguments before eventual publication of this letter. On 10 Sep 2009, we contacted the corresponding author of the incriminated manuscript, A. Pilger, and supplied him with the revised version of the Letter to the Editor submitted by A. Lerchl on 30 August 2009. We asked A. Pilger for comment and specifically for raw data, lab books or any other material which would allow a detailed analysis of the data. On 28 September 2009, we received a letter from A. Pilger rejecting the allegations without, however, providing any raw data. Since we were not sufficiently satisfied by A. Pilger’s response, we decided to further follow the COPE guidelines and on 12 November 2009 we informed all authors of the incriminated manuscript of our intention to contact the Medical University of Vienna and request an investigation. On 15 December 2009, we wrote a letter to the Rector of the Medical University of Vienna, asking whether the University was in possession of any additional information that could shed light on the question of scientific misconduct, and whether an investigation of the allegations was underway or planned. On 1 February 2010, we were informed by the Medical University of Vienna that several publications of the group of H.W. Rudiger, including the paper by Pilger et al. (2004), under discussion here, are currently being investigated by the Austrian Agency for Scientific Integrity (http://www.oeawi.at). The question of when scientific papers should be retracted even if the authors do not agree is a difficult one, especially because proofs for data fabrication and other forms of scientific misconduct are difficult to provide. We decided to publish the Letter to the Editor by Lerchl (2010) and a response to this letter by Pilger (2010), to give our readers the chance to build their own opinion. We note, however, that accusations of data fabrication have been A. A. Friedl (&) Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Munich, 80336 Munich, Germany e-mail: radiatenvironbiophys@lrz.uni-muenchen.de