Scientists demand retraction of study backing top COVID-19 test

An external peer review concludes a major paper supporting the most common test for COVID-19 has 10 "serious flaws."

The review by researchers from the International Consortium of Scientists in Life Sciences found that the widely used PCR tests -- short for Polymerase chain reaction --- result in many false positives when used to detect the coronavirus.

The researchers are requesting a retraction letter from the authors of the January study published by Eurosurveillance, including German scientists Dr. Christian Dorsten and Dr. Victor Corman.

"This paper will show numerous serious flaws in the Corman-Drosten paper, the significance of which has led to worldwide misdiagnosis of infections attributed to SARS-CoV-2 and associated with the disease COVID-19," the researchers write in their peer review.

"We are confronted with stringent lockdowns which have destroyed many people’s lives and livelihoods, limited access to education and these imposed restrictions by governments around the world are a direct attack on people's basic rights and their personal freedoms, resulting in collateral damage for entire economies on a global scale."

In August, the New York Times examined PCR testing data in three states and found "up to 90 percent of people testing positive carried barely any virus."

Experts who spoke to the Times said they couldn't understand why such cases were classified as infections.

"Some of the nation’s leading public health experts are raising a new concern in the endless debate over coronavirus testing in the United States: The standard tests are diagnosing huge numbers of people who may be carrying relatively insignificant amounts of the virus," the Times said.

The spike in cases in recent weeks, coinciding with an increase in testing, has led to new, stringent lockdown orders in California, New York, Oregon, Washington and other states, mostly led by Democratic governors.

Many businesses devastated by the first round of lockdowns in the spring say they won't survive the second round.

A briefing published by four British scientists PCR testing is "distorting policy and creating the illusion that we are in a serious pandemic when in fact we are not."

The paper notes that legal cases and technical challenges to PCR mass-testing are growing across Europe, including in the U.K.

"A false positive pseudo-epidemic is a well described phenomenon in the medical literature which results in an exponential rise in diagnosed cases and deaths but no excess deaths," the researchers write.