The Boldt affair: correcting a collective failure.

Following this journal’s principled initiative [1], a process was initiated leading to the retraction of a considerable body of studies reported by the German anesthetist Joachim Boldt. As a result, eleven reports addressing the safety and efficacy of hydroxyethyl starch (HES) have been removed from the medical literature [2,3], as part of a retraction of eighty eight Boldt publications, in the first instance because of a lack of ethics approval. In addition, besides the first study retracted by Anesthesia & Analgesia [4], a review on four other Boldt studies found that results were probably incorrect and manipulated [5]. An extensive inquiry by the Klinikum Ludwigshafen, Boldt’s employer, and the responsible State Medical Association, the Landesӓrztekammer Rheinland-Pfalz has been underway for the past year [6], and has reportedly revealed further non-compliance with German medical law, including faults in study design and data classification [5] . An official report of this process is still awaited. Apart from the grievous breaches in ethical issues, readers of Anesthesia & Analgesia are entitled to feel doubts on the veracity of the many Boldt studies claiming to use albumin in cardiac procedures since 1999, when the Klinikum Ludwigshafen has confirmed that no albumin has been used in the hospital since that year [6].