On March 21, a day after GISAID (an open-access influenza genome database launched in 2008) suspended access to all authors of a report posted on Zenodo, the public database reversed its stand and lifted the temporary access restrictions to all the authors.
In an email to The Hindu, a spokesperson of GISAID Media said that it decided to temporarily lift access restriction after the authors reached out to GISAID and “acknowledged receipt of GISAID’s earlier communications” and expressed their “eagerness to resolve the matter expeditiously”.
As per the spokesperson, GISAID reversed its stand and lifted the temporary access restrictions as a “show of goodwill” and did so after it received a reply from the authors soon after the GISAID released a statement on March 21. However, GISAID has communicated to the authors of its decision to review all evidence and has invited the authors to share additional information.
“The review is not complete,” the spokesperson said in the email. “Lifting temporary access restrictions is not, in itself, determinative or otherwise indicative of the conclusion of any data use investigation.”
The spokesperson further added that GISAID did not comment whether the reversal of its stand vindicated the authors that the team was in compliance with the rules following the publication as the review was still ongoing.
The spokesperson explained the reasons for temporarily blocking access to the authors: posting the preprint disclosing the findings from the data to the general public (as opposed to only relevant public health authorities or other registered GISAID users) and the fact that most of the authors of the report “received GISAID’s request for feedback and assistance but chose not to respond, left GISAID with no other choice but to temporarily suspend these authors’ access credentials”.
“The authors created a fait accompli scenario,” the GISAID Media said.
Blindsided
To a question whether the authors of the Zenodo report were explicitly forewarned that their access would be suspended in case of a violation, the spokesperson said that the authors were informed that “publishing a work using the data at issue would violate GISAID’s database access agreement. Despite this knowledge, the authors nevertheless published their work, which blindsided GISAID.”
The spokesperson further added: “In most instances, where complaints are investigated and users are helpful to mitigate the given situation, such measures are not needed. When it becomes evident that any user ignores requests for clarity and appears reluctant to help ensure the data generators’ rights will be upheld, such measures will only be used as a last resort.”
“The authors of the publication ignored GISAID’s request for feedback over an eight-day period following what remains a data contributors’ legitimate complaint. Instead, the authors created a fait accompli scenario and continued to ignore GISAID’s initial request,” the spokesperson said.
On March 13, GISAID had contacted Edward Holmes and Michael Worobey (two of the co-authors of the report) and other GISAID users it believed to be in possession of the data to request their feedback and assistance in this inquiry.
“Unfortunately, none of the replies GISAID received came from the authors listed on what would later become a ‘publication’ on Zenodo, a general-purpose open repository,” GISAID Media said in the email to The Hindu. “It is noteworthy that the authors’ report extensively acknowledged that they received the request for information fromz GISAID, yet ignored GISAID’s request.”
In the report in Zenodo, the authors explicitly acknowledged that they were in receipt of emails from GISAID. “On March 13, those of us who had either downloaded the data, or associated metadata, or contacted the corresponding author of the preprint, received emails from the GISAID Secretariat admonishing us to comply with the GISAID terms of use, or in some cases falsely accusing us of having breached the GISAID terms of use,” they write.
Collaboration
On the issue about ambiguity around what constitutes a good faith attempt to collaborate, GISAID Media said that collaborations take place on GISAID every day, and that GISAID fosters critical interactions for the benefit of global public health, such as in the discovery of the Omicron variant by South Africa and Botswana in November 2021.
“Making a meaningful effort to collaborate begins with respecting the data generators and appreciating their first-hand knowledge of the data they provide. It also means not engaging in “scooping” whereby authors rush to publish their work that relies on someone else’s data despite having knowledge that the same data generator has a manuscript under review at a peer-reviewed scientific journal,” the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson added that data contributors seek the assistance of GISAID time-to-time when they believe their data have been used in a non-compliant manner with the terms of use all registered users have agreed to adhere to. “GISAID must take all complaints seriously, and its procedures call for diligent inquiry, which includes following up with all parties potentially involved,” GISAID Media said.
Accordingly, GISAID opened an inquiry when it received a complaint from Chinese CDC researchers about their interaction with two of the co-authors of the report, who “communicated their intent to make certain use of data generated by the China CDC that was non-compliant”.
“The vast majority of GISAID’s tens of thousands of users demonstrate sound scientific etiquette which has contributed to the initiative’s overwhelming success over the course of the last 15 years,” the GISAID Media spokesperson said.
The spokesperson concluded saying that the raw data in question from the China CDC not being made available is “not GISAID’s decision to make. This decision rests solely with the data generators”.
