Chinese researchers have retracted or amended Covid articles on unusual grounds under pressure from their governments, and international scientific journals have allowed this in a number of cases. This is reported by investigative journalists from the American newspaper The New York Times.
Censorship campaign
Although the Chinese censorship campaign to rewrite the narrative about the origins of the corona pandemic is well known, its influence extends far beyond what was initially thought. According to the American investigative journalists, Chinese authors have asked international scientific journals to withdraw or amend their articles on unusual grounds, such as: ‘our data is not perfect enough’. The magazines agreed in a number of cases. Although it is more common for articles to be withdrawn or modified, it usually concerns unreliable or incorrect data. The American newspaper writes that Chinese researchers were forced to make these requests by the Chinese government. Although they cannot say this with certainty in all cases, because Chinese researchers cannot speak freely about this.
Remarkable
It is striking, write the investigative journalists, that these mainly concerned articles about the first infections, the speed of the early virus spread and the well-being of Chinese doctors and other healthcare providers in the first months in which the mysterious lung disease – which was later named covid- 19 got – turned up. The investigative journalists rely on the website Retraction Watch, an international database that keeps track of which scientific articles have been withdrawn. Incidentally, it did not stop at scientific journals. International genetic databases also had to suffer. Like the genetic data from samples from the Wuhan market. That data showed that raccoon dog DNA has crept into the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
