A 2018 research article that claimed the HPV vaccine offered “significant” protection against preterm birth has been retracted after authors found it could have exactly the opposite effect. Statistical errors in the article were blamed for the erroneous information.
The researchers were also noted to have undisclosed financial ties to CSL Limited, which owns the HPV vaccine rights in Australia and New Zealand. In their retraction notice, the authors wrote that “there was an incorrect interpretation of the odds ratio meaning that instead of HPV vaccination potentially being protective, there may be an associated increased risk of preterm delivery.”
While they added that an increased risk of preterm delivery is “unlikely,” they admitted they had an “inexperienced” person compiling the data, who “probably inverted a data set,” and since they couldn’t access the old, raw, data, they would have to repeat the study to make sure exactly what the data actually show.
SOURCE: Retraction Watch September 23, 2020