Newsweek‘s Mary Carmichael has a great tip to a sensational story that may or may not pay off, and she’s not waiting for certainty. It’s out now under the hed, “The Little Flaw in the Longevity-Gene Study That Could Be a Big Problem.” Last week’s big news maker from the journal Science was that a genome-wide association study produced a list of genes whose frequency appears sharply different in people who live beyond age 100 than those who do not (previous post).
Carmichael reported then that some geneticists found the results almost too good to be true (stealing from her lede there). Some now tell her that a standard practice in such studies was not followed in this particular one: to use the same DNA analysis chips on all samples including controls. Some say the results, in part, may be due to use of two different chips and not in equal proportion among centenarians and controls, and that one of the chips is know to be prone to systematic errors in handling some of the genes reported.
Among those evincing skepticism of the protocol is a man who helps handle Iceland’s huge genetic database and who is familiar with DNA chips and their quirks (but who, one also thinks, may also have particular motive to see flaws in somebody else’s study).
Interesting is that her story includes a somewhat formal response from the Utah research team, conceding that questions have been raised. It mentions that she and the NYTimes both have queried them about possible procedural weaknesses. We’ve not seen anything from the Times yet.
More interesting perhaps is that Carmichael’s on line dispatch, in the chatty style of a blog, flatly expresses amazement – and without hiding behind quotes from sources – that Science‘s review process did not challenge the authors on this technical point. It does seem a little bit obscure to me, easy to miss, but she reports that careful application of identical procedures and equipment for both test and control specimens is something reviewers should routinely check.
Thus, when looked at carefully, the Newsweek account is not about a mistake in the Utah team’s results. The results may stand up. Her story is about a journal’s peer review rigor. That these, or some, of these genes are really associated with age, she writes, remains plausible. There are more chapters to come, clearly, in this tale.
The NYT, presumably, will be publishing its own take on this affair if it, too, decides it has enough fire to go with the smoke.
– Charlie Petit
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