Misleading BMJ Public Health paper on COVID-19 excess mortality needs to be retracted
Multiple concerns
Mostert et al discuss estimates of excess mortality—the increase above an expected pre-pandemic baseline—during the COVID-19 pandemic period of 2020 to 2022 for 47 countries of the Western world. They conclude that the excess mortality was high during these years, despite the implementation of containment measures and COVID-19 vaccines and that this raises serious concern. They write, "Government leaders and policymakers need to thoroughly investigate the underlying causes of persistent excess mortality."
It is not immediately clear from the abstract of the paper what the authors saw in the excess mortality data that concerns them so. However, as major sections in the paper are dedicated to the discussion of perceived problems of serious adverse effects of vaccines and indirect mortality caused by non-pharmaceutical interventions, the public response to the article has been to take the article as evidence for vaccination and mitigation being the main causes of excess mortality—rather than the far more plausible explanation that widespread COVID-19 disease was the main cause of excess mortality.
The work of Mostert and colleagues has been called into question by others, as cataloged on pubpeer and by Retraction Watch. Stuart McDonald, MBE, has a thorough discussion in a blog post detailing many of the concerns with the paper. A commentary co-authored by one of the plagiarized authors, Ariel Karlinsky, is also due to appear shortly. Finally, the research institutions of three of the four authors have distanced themselves from the paper. The cited funding agency has said it has been incorrectly listed as a sponsor of the publication.
Just 3 days after publication, the journal that published the work, BMJ Public Health, issued a statement emphasizing that the news coverage of the publication has misrepresented the contents of the study. The statement, however, does not respond to claims of plagiarism or whether the article is under consideration for retraction. In a June 13 BMJ press release, the journal announced its intentions to publish an expression of concern on the paper and to investigate the quality of the research.