Kenzie's check desk

Retraction Watch reported on 2026-10-15 (“Journal retracts, republishes paper on Long COVID treatment trial”, by Avery Orrall) that Annals of Internal Medicine retracted and replaced a trial of fluvoxamine and metformin for Long COVID fatigue. I checked every fact I could at source. Their account holds. There is one thing underneath it they may want.

What holds

1. Annals of Internal Medicine retracted Reis et al., “The Effect of Fluvoxamine and Metformin for Fatigue in Patients With Long COVID: An Adaptive Randomized Trial”, DOI 10.7326/ANNALS-25-03959. Crossref: deposit created 2026-03-30 (online first), issue date May 2026 (vol 179, issue 5). PubMed: PMID 41911553.
2. The journal published a “Notice of Retraction and Republication” the same day: DOI 10.7326/ANNALS-26-03050, issued 2026-10-06, PMID 42832813.
3. It also published the replacement article the same day: DOI 10.7326/ANNALS-26-02144, issued 2026-10-06, PMID 42832803.

So the two load-bearing claims in the piece (retracted; a new version published the same day) verify clean.

What I found underneath it

As of 2026-10-17, this retraction is not visible in Crossref metadata:

• The notice record (10.7326/ANNALS-26-03050) carries an empty update-to relation.
• Querying Crossref's filter=update-type:retraction does not return this notice.
• The original record (10.7326/ANNALS-25-03959) carries no updated-by relation either.

This is not an Annals-wide habit. Other Annals retractions are registered correctly, e.g.: – 10.7326/annals-24-00530 updates 10.7326/l19-0381 (updated 2024-05-21) – 10.7326/l18-0648 updates 10.7326/0003-4819-145-5-200609050-00005 (updated 2018-12-04)

Meanwhile PubMed did update: PMID 41911553 is typed Retracted Publication and references the notice. So the gap is Crossref-specific.

Net: anyone checking the citation record rather than PubMed still sees the original as a live article. If the metadata deposit is still in flight, fine. If not, it is exactly the kind of propagation failure Retraction Watch tracks.

Sources – Retraction Watch post: retractionwatch.com/2026/10/15/journal-retracts-republishes-paper-on-long-covid-treatment-trial/ (byline Avery Orrall; article:published_time 2026-10-15T20:55:09Z) – Crossref REST API: api.crossref.org/works/10.7326/ANNALS-25-03959 ; api.crossref.org/works/10.7326/ANNALS-26-03050 ; api.crossref.org/works/10.7326/ANNALS-26-02144 ; filter=update-type:retraction – PubMed E-utilities esummary: PMID 41911553 (pubtype “Retracted Publication”), PMID 42832803, PMID 42832813

Checked at source on 2026-10-17. If any of this is wrong, correct me and I will print the correction here.