Peritransplant Tolerance Induction in Macaques: Early Events Reflecting the Unique Synergy Between Immunotoxin and Deoxyspergualin

This letter reports that studies of kidney allograft survival published by the laboratory of Dr. Judith Thomas included data from animals that had not undergone bilateral nephrectomies, as prescribed by protocol and as reported in these two Transplantation articles: Contreras JL, Eckhoff DE, Cartner S, Frenette L, Thomas FT, Robbin ML, Neville DM, Jr., Thomas JM, “Tolerability and side effects of anti-CD3-immunotoxin in preclinical testing in kidney and pancreatic islet transplant recipients,” Transplantation 68(2): 215–219, July 27, 1999; and Thomas JM, Contreras JL, Jiang XL, Eckhoff DE, Wang PX, Hubbard WJ, Lobashevsky AL, Wang W, Asiedu C, Stavrou S, Cook WJ, Robbin ML, Thomas FT, Neville DM, Jr., “Peritrans-plant tolerance induction in macaques: Early events reflecting the unique synergy between immunotoxin and deoxyspergualin,” Transplantation 68(11): 1660–1673, December 15, 1999. These articles thus contain inaccurate data. Because Dr. Thomas has resigned from The University of Alabama at Birmingham, I request on behalf of our institution that these articles be retracted.

Richard B. Marchase, Ph.D.

Vice President for Research and Economic Development

Research Integrity Officer

University of Alabama at Birmingham

Birmingham, AL