Authors retract paper “confirming” that narcolepsy is an autoimmune disease
A group of researchers at Stanford and elsewhere is retracting a 2013 paper that another scientist told Nature was “one of the biggest things to happen in the narcolepsy field for some time.”
The Science Translational Medicine paper caused a buzz because it claimed to show that narcolepsy was an autoimmune disease. Here’s the notice:
A.K. De la Herrán-Arita and colleagues retract their Research Article “CD4+ T Cell Autoimmunity to Hypocretin/Orexin and Cross-Reactivity to a 2009 H1N1 Influenza A Epitope in Narcolepsy,” which appeared in the 18 December 2013 issue of Science Translational Medicine. The researchers report that they have been unable to reproduce the paper’s key findings. Specifically, they could not demonstrate a differential Enzyme-Linked ImmunoSpot response of CD4+ T cells from patients with narcolepsy compared to those from normal controls after exposure to the hypocretin peptides HCRT56–68 or HCRT87–99. Because the validity of the conclusions reported in the study cannot be confirmed, they are retracting the article.
Here is Christina's excellent explanation.
Now, I would appreciate it if he would rescind that suggestion that we all get flu shots until they figure out what the hell is going on.
Updates:
Stanford Notice
AAAS Article
NatGeo
Yoo Hoo.... Narcolepsy Network.... where are you.... Tick Tock....
