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Unethical studies on Chinese minority groups are being retracted — but not fast enough, critics say

Campaigners who want scrutiny of biometrics research on Uyghurs, Tibetans and other groups are frustrated by slow progress.
By
  1. Dyani Lewis

    1. Dyani Lewis is a freelance journalist in Melbourne, Australia.

Local people walk past a policeman wearing a helmet and holding a shield in a street in Kashgar in Xinjiang province, China

A policeman observes passers-by in Kashgar in Xinjiang, China, where there are reports of human-rights abuses against Uyghur people. Credit: Kevin Frayer/Getty

Yves Moreau thought something was amiss when he came across a genetics paper about Tibetans in China. In the 2022 report in PLoS ONE, a team of researchers had collected blood samples from hundreds of people in the Tibet Autonomous Region of China and recorded genetic markers on their X chromosomes. The researchers concluded that this analysis was useful for forensic identification and paternity testing1.

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Nature 625, 650-654 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-00170-0

Updates & Corrections

  • Correction 05 February 2024: This story wrongly implied that Dennis McNevin was speaking about only China when he described the practice of police involvement in forensic population-genetics research.

  • Update 05 February 2024: After publication of this article, Adnan Atif contacted Nature with more details about his role in a project to analyse the DNA of people from different ethnic groups in Xinjiang. He says that his role in the project was in “ensuring the accuracy and integrity of our research findings” and that “the complexities surrounding the ethical and political aspects of sample collection, particularly in international contexts, fall outside my purview”.

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