The STAR* D study, which was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, was the “largest and longest study ever done to evaluate depression treatment.” It was conducted with the purpose of producing results in “real-world” patients that would guide future clinical care in the U.S. In an article published in the American Journal of Psychiatry in November 2006, STAR*D investigators announced the results: 67% of the patients had remitted by the end of four stages of treatment.

This outcome was promoted by the NIMH to the public and is still cited today in the media as the best proof of the effectiveness of antidepressants. 

That result, however, is fraudulent. A recent patient-level reanalysis of the trial data, published in BMJ Open, found that only 35% of the patients who met inclusion criteria ever remitted. In the article, Ed Pigott and colleagues detailed the protocol deviations that turned a 35% remission rate into the fraudulent 67% rate that was peddled to the public.

Mad in America, a non-profit webzine, recently published a report that details the chronology of this research fraud and provides a precise account of the number of additional patients deemed remitted due to the protocol violations. 

As a 2011 article notes, when “findings are no longer considered trustworthy due to scientific misconduct,” then “the retraction process is essential for correcting the literature and maintaining trust in the scientific process.” 

That standard clearly applies to this case. The RIAT reanalysis demands that the American Journal of Psychiatry act to “correct the literature” regarding the outcomes of the “largest and longest study ever done to evaluate depression treatment.”

We urge you to join Mad in America Foundation in this petition to the American Journal of Psychiatry, requesting that it do the following:

• Retract the November 2006 study that told of a 67% remission rate in the STAR*D study. 
• Inform the media that a re-analysis of the patient level data determined that if the protocol had been followed, the remission rate in the STAR*D study would have been only 35%.

We will submit this petition to Ned Kalin, M.D., who is the editor of the American Journal of Psychiatry.