What is "release activity"?
Antiviral Research Magazine has withdrawn two articles by Russian homeopaths about Anaferon and Ergoferon
The editor-in-chief of the publication finally figured out what is hidden under the words "release activity"
Ivan Shunin, "The Attic"
On February 19 and 23, the editorial board of the journal Antiviral Research withdrew articles that were published in it in 2011 and 2017, respectively. Among the authors of these works was Oleg Epstein, a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, both were devoted to the "release-active" drugs of the Materia Medica company - Anaferon and Ergoferon. The recall of these articles was sought by chemist Evgenia Dueva and biologist Alexander Panchin.
All this, however, does not prevent the Russian pharmaceutical company Materia Medica from producing homeopathic remedies and distributing them on the domestic Russian market as over-the-counter medicines. The company calls some of its drugs "release-active", without explicitly stating that they are the same as conventional homeopathic remedies. Researchers affiliated with the company are trying to publish articles in scientific journals that allegedly illustrate the reality of the "release activity" effect, which was invented by Oleg Epstein, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and director of Materia Medica. Sometimes they succeed.
In 2017, chemist Evgenia Dueva, together with biologist and educator Alexander Panchin, wrote six critical reviews of "cryptogomeopathic" articles and sent them to the editorial offices of relevant scientific journals. In addition, as Panchin clarified in a conversation with The Attic, their colleague informed a number of journals that they were unlucky enough to publish a study of homeopathy on their pages. In May 2018, the magazine PLoS ONE, one of the "shortlist" notified by Dueva and Panchin, heeded the criticism and withdrew the article by Epstein and his colleagues. Now Antiviral Research has joined the "come to their senses" publishers, which on February 19 and 23 withdrew articles by homeopaths devoted to the effectiveness of quasi-homeopathic drugs "Anaferon" and "Ergoferon" (1, 2).
"I feel like I got an unexpected birthday present," Panchin commented on this event in a conversation with the Attic. He noted that the review of articles from Antiviral Research should not be credited only to Russian fighters against pseudoscience: firstly, this magazine does not belong to the "shortlist" and a detailed critical analysis of the articles of cryptogomeopaths was not sent there. And secondly, when a few years ago he and his colleagues informed Antiviral Research about the pseudoscience of Epstein's articles, the editors replied that they had noticed something was wrong and were already conducting an internal investigation. Punchin could not name the exact date of this conversation to the correspondent of the Attic from memory, since this exchange took place, at the earliest, in 2017. And only now the investigation has ended with a recall. "Judging by the letter we received, the editor–in-chief of the journal is also very pleased," the biologist added.
Now on the corresponding web pages of these articles, a message about the review is displayed, accompanied by a comment, the text of which we give here in its entirety: "Homeopathy is a form of therapy that has gone out of fashion (our italics are "Attic"), which is not used in modern medical practice and is rejected by modern science. If the manuscript sent to Antiviral Research indicated that the substances studied there were of a homeopathic nature, it would not have been accepted for publication. After the editor-in-chief became aware of this, he, after discussing what had happened with other experts, decided to officially withdraw the article."
In the "Dueva - Panchin shortlist" Now there are four more journals that have published articles by cryptogomeopaths affiliated with Materia Medica on their pages. They have not been recalled yet.
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