COVID-19 and Misinformation: How Infodemics Promoted Vitamin D Excellence
Henrina J, Lim MA, Pranata R. COVID-19 and misinformation: how infodemic fuels vitamin D prominence Br J Nutr. 2021; 125(3): 359-360. doi: 10.1017/S0007114520002950
This bibliography contains references to "COVID-19 mortality and vitamin D patterns: an Indonesian study". The article received a lot of attention on the Internet, with a large number of views, citations, and downloads, and this information was also spread through social media. On Reddit, 330 comments and 857 yes votes were generated, indicating a positive response, and on Twitter, it was tweeted 1552 times and retweeted 875 times since April 27, with the most recent tweet on June 29.
In addition, it was reported in major media outlets such as the Daily Mail and the Sun, and the news section of the British Heart Foundation even discussed the paper in an article titled "Coronavirus: Which news stories can we trust? However, these responsible media outlets provided a disclaimer that the study was a preprint and had not yet been peer-reviewed, while at the same time revealing the lack of information relevant to all researchers.
Such fraudulent publications for public consumption can spread more quickly and overwhelm measures to contain them, but since they can be conducted by prominent researchers, collaborations, or NIH-funded publications, "preprint papers" do not necessarily mean "unreliable" sources. It is a mistake to assume that "preprint papers" are necessarily "unreliable" sources of information.
In this case, the RECOVERY trial (randomized evaluation of COVID-19 therapy) has a chance to provide the best treatment, but a more critical approach is needed when reading preprint articles.
The author of this article is from Indonesia, and our own research led us to evaluate the validity of the preprint manuscript and found several problems, since the author's profile could not be found in various institutions.
(1) The authors did not specifically mention the names and numbers of hospitals and how they obtained confidential data.
(2) The name of the ethical/institutional review committee is not mentioned and there is no ethical approval for the study.
(3) Vitamin D is not routinely checked in Indonesia. Data collection methods are retrospective and questionable.
Finally, we checked with the COVID-19 administrator of the local public hospital in Sukamala, which is reportedly affiliated with the authors, and the administrator told us that the names of the authors mentioned do not work at this hospital.
Therefore, several steps have been taken to investigate the identity and existence of the author, but to no avail, and at the time this article was written, the link to Raharusuna etal. and the preprint of SSRN ElectronicJournal are no longer accessible.
However, these misinformation have been spread to various media outlets, cited in several publications, and believed by many to be true.
