Researchers from UC Davis are facing an embarrassing “Expression of Concern” letter from PLOS ONE, regarding their May 2020 DCM paper.
The May 2020 paper from scientists at UC Davis claiming grain free pet foods from small manufacturers were linked to heart disease in dogs has been issued a “Expression of Concern” letter from the organization that published the paper. The ‘Concern’ letter states:
“The article is being reassessed in light of issues raised post-publication, and the journal is investigating the validity of the concerns raised as well as their implications for the reliability of the article’s conclusions.”
RetractionWatch.com – a website that publishes notices regarding the retraction of scientific papers – provides this insight:
“For starters, the updated conflicts of interest statement is a far cry from the original, which reads:
“A.J. Fascetti [Andrea Fascetti, one of the corresponding authors] is the Scientific Director of and J. Yu is employed by the Amino Acid Laboratory at the University of California, Davis that provides amino acid analysis on a fee for service basis. This did not influence the collection or interpretation of results in this study. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.
“Here’s the new one:
“AJF is the Scientific Director and JY is the Technical Director of the Amino Acid Laboratory at the University of California, Davis (UCD) that provides amino acid analysis on a fee for service basis. AJF received remuneration for lectures or as an advisor on behalf of Nestlé Purina PetCare, Mars Petcare, Synergy Food Ingredients, the Mark Morris and Pet Food Institutes. AJF received funding from Nutro for graduate student training. A resident on the Nutrition Service, mentored in part by AJF, received funds from the Hill’s Pet Nutrition Resident Clinical Study Grants program, matched by the Center for Companion Animal Health, School of Veterinary Medicine at UCD. The Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital at UCD received funding from Royal Canin to support a resident, and from Nestlé Purina PetCare to partially support a nutrition technician. AJF has a contract with the FDA on unrelated research. Since the time of article submission, JAS [Stern] has received research support from Nature’s Variety Inc. Collectively, this did not influence the collection or interpretation of results in this study. There are no patents, products in development or marketed products to declare. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.
“Those omissions alone might well warrant retraction.”
But that’s not all that the scientific community questioned in this paper. From the PLOS ONE Expression of Concern letter:
“Questions were raised around the criteria used to categorize diets, including about the rationale of including global company sales details in these criteria given the objectives of the study.”
“Soybeans are in the legume family, but soybeans and soy products were not considered as legumes for the purpose of categorizing diets in this study. The authors have requested a correction to clarify that this was an intentional exclusion, and they have noted that this aspect of the study design aligned with how soy products are being handled in a related FDA investigation.”
“Questions were raised as to whether three months on a given diet is a sufficient duration to impact cardiac/DCM outcomes, and whether diet history prior to a subject’s current diet may impact the study outcomes. Concerns were also raised about differences between groups in the average time on the current diet.”
“Questions were raised about the validity of the conclusion statement, “Grain free diets, produced by small companies, including legumes within the top 5 ingredients represent a risk for the development of taurine deficiency and echocardiographic abnormalities consistent with DCM in the golden retriever.”
We (TruthaboutPetFood.com) pointed some of these concerns in May 2020. (Click Here to read).
To read the full Expression of Concern statement, Click Here.
Wishing you and your pet(s) the best,
Susan Thixton
Pet Food Safety Advocate
TruthaboutPetFood.com
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T Allen
October 5, 2020 at 8:44 pm
I totally agree that the conflict of interest misinformation alone should be enough to retract the paper! Pretty obvious even without the other discrepancies. Should be causing UC Davis to reconsider their employment.
Tina
October 6, 2020 at 8:40 am
Glad a concerned letter was issued. Wish the multiple problems with the paper had been caught PRIOR to publication. Where was the quality control? It does not take a scientific background to understand the multiple issues of logic with the paper.
Denise
October 12, 2020 at 8:55 pm
This was interesting to me because one of our dogs was diagnosed with kidney disease. When we left with our little guy I looked at the “prescription” food they gave me and was horrified.
So I explained that I usually made their food myself and if I was looking at that food in a store it would never cross the threshold into my house.
At that point we were told if we wanted to make his food ourselves we would have to take him to UC Davis and they would put a diet together just for him. THEN we were handed a stack of papers that was about a 1/4 inch thick. We were told the entire packet had to be filled out when we arrived for our appointment.
Once home we looked thru the packet and it became pretty obvious we were being used to complete someone’s research project. Most of the questions were patently ridiculous and were unnecessary to develop a diet for my dog.
This was all new to us, we knew nothing about kidney disease. We had never had a dog with kidney disease. One doctor told us a dogs kidneys were 70% gone before they could tell anything on a blood test.
So when I saw this article I wasn’t surprised.