We sent the following email to Ned Kalin, M.D., editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Psychiatry this morning (October 10):

Dear Ned Kalin, M.D.

As you know, a RIAT patient-level analysis of the STAR*D summary findings, which were published in the American Journal of Psychiatry in November 2006, found that the cumulative remission rate was 35%, rather than the 67% reported in the Am J of Psychiatry article. The reanalysis was published in BMJ Open in August.

The authors of the RIAT analysis, led by Ed Pigott, detailed how the STAR*D authors inflated the reported remission rate. The most egregious involved including outcomes from 931 patients who weren’t depressed enough at baseline to meet eligibility criteria for the trial; this protocol violation alone added 570 to the number said to have remitted in the 2006 summary article.

Mad in America, a U.S. based webzine, published an article detailing the findings in the RIAT reanalysis and the protocol violations laid out by Pigott and colleagues in their article. At that time, we put up a petition on change.org urging that the Am J of Psychiatry retract the 2006 article.

The case for retraction is clear. Medical editors are duty-bound to retract articles when their “findings are no longer considered trustworthy due to scientific misconduct or error.” The media has long cited the STAR*D study, with it announced remission rate of 67%, as evidence of the effectiveness of antidepressants in real-world patients. The American Journal of Psychiatry needs to retract that summary article and properly inform the public that the cumulative remission rate in that study was, in fact, 35%.

Our petition has been signed by more than 1,600 people from 44 countries, including a number of psychiatrists.  

I, along with the the signers of the petition, look forward to receiving your response.

Sincerely,

Robert Whitaker
Mad in America Foundation President