Vitamin C supplementation for asthma: Feedback submitted by Harri Hemila, 24 March 2009

In 2009, Harri Hemilä found that there were several errors in the Cochrane review “vitamin C supplementation for asthma” (2009). He wrote a feedback which was published in the 2010 version of the “2009” review. The managing editor, Emma Welsh, wrote a response in the 2012 version of the “2009” Cochrane review. Simultaneously, the three analysis figures, which were the main focus of the 2009 critique, were removed from the review. This led to confusing process over a year, which ended with COPE stating that the original (2009) version must be made available to readers, see a brief summary [1]. As a result of this process, one single PubMed record (#19160185) [2] links to two different versions of the same “2009” Cochrane review. The PubMedCentral version (2009) includes all the original figures, but not the 2009 feedback. The Cochrane Library version (2012) includes the feedback, but does not include the three analysis figures to which the feedback focused. This document is the third version of the “vitamin C supplementation for asthma” (2010) and has both the original figures and the 2009 feedback.

1. Hemilä H. Cochrane has not consistently followed the COPE guidelines. Eur J Clin Invest. 2020;50(4):e13216. 
https://doi.org/10.1111/eci.13216 
https://hdl.handle.net/10138/326823
2. PubMed https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19160185