March 28, 2024

Did Dutch researchers put publication before public health?

Dutch researchers concealed an outbreak of an STD in Europe so that they could publish a paper about it in an academic journal, the Dutch Health Care Inspectorate has claimed. It says that specialists at the STD clinic at the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam knew in July 2003 that 14 people has been infected by a type of chlamydia. But only when the first case report appeared in December was a public health alert issued. By then there had been an avalanche of new cases, including some in the US. “We are convinced less people would have been infected without the delay, while others would have been treated sooner and been infectious more briefly,” said a Dutch government official. A spokesman for the medical centre denied the allegations.