The article, "Homeopathic Treatment as an Add‐On Therapy May Improve Quality of Life and Prolong Survival in Patients with Non‐Small Cell Lung Cancer: A Prospective, Randomized, Placebo‐Controlled, Double‐Blind, Three‐Arm, Multicenter Study," appeared in The Oncologist in November 2020. Michael Frass, the lead author of the paper, is a homeopathic practitioner who was working at the Medical University of Vienna, at the time the work was published.
The paper has been cited 18 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science, and was included in a German medical organization’s guideline about complementary treatment for cancer patients. Many homeopathy organizations posted about the study on X as evidence of the approach’s benefit, helping propel the article to the top 5% of all research articles for which Altmetric, a publication data company, has tracked online attention.
In a report dated September 2022 and obtained by Retraction Watch, the Austrian watchdog said its investigation "found numerous manipulations," and asked The Oncologist’s editor in chief Susan Bates to retract the article. The journal published an extensive correction to the article. Along with the correction, the journal published an editorial by Bates and another editor describing how The Oncologist published the paper in a section dedicated to the results of clinical trials that might not otherwise be posted. The correction doesn’t address the issues Aust, Weisshäupl, and the Austrian Agency for Scientific Integrity found with the study.
