The Chinese national flag flies outside a mosque at the Xinjiang International Grand Bazar in China, January 3, 2019. Photo: Reuters/Ben Blanchard
New Delhi: A scientific journal has been hit by a slew of resignations after it published several controversial papers that critics say could be used to profile and persecute ethnic minorities in China, and dragged its feet about reviewing them when they were flagged, according to The Intercept.
The report says that the resignations at Molecular Genetics & Genomic Medicine came after the journal’s editor-in-chief was slow to respond to queries about papers that involve research on persecuted minorities, including Tibetans and Uyghurs. The papers were first brought to Suzanne Hart’s attention in March by Yves Moreau, a bioinformatician at the University of Leuven, Belgium.
The Intercept said Moreau “has waged a tireless campaign” to get journals to retract troubling or unethical papers.
For years, scientists have expressed unease about research into DNA collected for forensic databases, which is used by the police in criminal investigations. Apart from concerns about profiling, scientists are also worried that DNA could be collected from ethnic minorities without their consent. This is the case with Uyghurs in China and the Roma in Eastern Europe.
In the US, racial disparities in imprisonment – a disproportionate number of Black and Latino constitute the prison population – have translated into the disproportionate collection of DNA from these ethnic groups.
According to The Intercept, this is the first time so many members of a journal’s editorial board – nearly a third – have resigned due to concerns of ethics.
Moreau first became concerned about DNA profiling in 2015, when Kuwait planned to collect DNA from all citizens, residents and visitors. Thanks to his and others’ efforts, the decision was overturned the following year. But Moreau continued to worry that science and artificial intelligence could be used to further authoritarianism.
“In technology, we have this nice comfortable geek image,” he told The Intercept. “But when you really look at the history of technology, you see that it has been a nexus of power forever – for at least 2,000 years.”
Recently, he turned his attention to DNA profiling in China, particularly in Xinjiang, where China is accused of interning 1 million Uyghurs in camps and of forcing them into labour. China collects DNA from men of all ethnicities but also forcibly collects samples from migrant workers and political dissidents.
While running his periodic automated search for papers on ethically charged topics, he came across 18 papers published by Molecular Genetics & Genomic Medicine. Though the journal isn’t a leading outlet for genetic research, according to the report, it has an impact factor suggesting it isn’t an obscure journal either. In fact, The Intercept wrote that since the journal is published by Wiley, one of the world’s major scientific publishers, it has “an imprimatur of respectability”.
“Some of the papers describe genetic differences between ethnic groups. Police can use such research for DNA profiling, to better match crime suspects with DNA samples from the broader population. Other papers relied on samples that Moreau suspected were taken without proper consent,” The Intercept says.
In 2019, Molecular Genetics & Genomic Medicine started publishing papers by authors in China on forensic genetics. Many of them list institutions affiliated with the Chinese police as funders, or authors from these institutions.
Moreau wrote to the journal’s editor in chief, Suzanne Hart, in March that since the journal was founded in 2013, it “had published only two forensic genetic studies from outside China”.
“This suggests that MGGM has been specifically identified as a journal where forensic population genetic studies of vulnerable Tibetan and [M]uslim minorities can be published,” he wrote.
While Hart said she was looking into the matter and that she would respond shortly, Moreau said he didn’t get any updates despite having sent multiple follow-up emails.
Wiley’s public affairs office emailed a statement from Hart to The Intercept which said the journal is “actively investigating and driving toward a timely, transparent resolution”. Hart, who is also deputy director at the medical genetics and genomic medicine training program with the US National Institutes of Health’s National Human Genome Research Institute, said, “We take the concerns expressed extremely seriously and regret that delayed communications may have indicated otherwise.”
But after receiving no response from Hart, Moreau took the issue to the journal’s entire editorial board in June 2021. He listed the suspect papers and explained how Chinese police use forensic genetics. Some of the board members echoed his calls for an investigation.
Though Hart also wrote an email to the board, that she would soon send a message “outlining our decision on how to address this issue”, there was no further explanation to the board or to Moreau.
This is when board members started resigning.
“I would have wanted to hear much more quickly from the editorial staff,” Ophir Klein, a pediatric medical geneticist at the University of California San Francisco and one of the board members who quit, told The Intercept.
A Wiley spokesperson said the group has completed its first step of the investigation and will now connect with the authors “to clarify the consent procedures for the research undertaken”.
However, Moreau said the focus on consent is “too narrow”. He told The Intercept that the larger question is whether “the journal should be publishing research on vulnerable minorities, some of which directly involves the authorities persecuting them”.
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