The Journal of the American Heart Association retracted a paper advocating for universities to end racial and ethnic preference programs for undergraduate and medical school admissions, Cardiac Rhythm News reports.
Published in the journal's March 2020 issue, the paper criticized the Association of American Medical Colleges' efforts to increase underrepresented nationalities in medicine, saying such efforts "have consistently fallen short." Study author and associate professor of medicine at University of Pittsburgh Norman Wang, MD, cited a "limited qualified applicant pool" as one of the reasons behind the failures.
The American Heart Association put out a statement refuting Dr. Wang's paper. The statement said: "The Wang paper has rightfully drawn criticism for its misrepresentations and conclusions. As an [organization] focused on the relentless pursuit of longer, healthier lives for everyone everywhere, the AHA denounces the views expressed in the article and regrets its role in enabling those views to be promoted."
AHA also said it would examinethe journal's peer review and publication processes to ensure papers not aligning with the journal's core values won't be published in the future.