On 2014 Jul 05, David Keller commented:

An important factual error in this paper was corrected by JAMA on their website, as of 7/10/2014. A copy of this paper which is posted on the PubMed Central website was corrected, as of 7/31/2014.

For readers of the paper edition of JAMA, here is the incorrect statement, from the end of paragraph #5 of this paper's "Comment" section (1):

"In addition, the Supplementation en Vitamines et Mineraux Antioxydants (SU.VI.MAX) primary prevention trial (2) of 13,017 participants randomized to a low-dose combination of vitamin C, vitamin E, beta carotene, selenium, and zinc found no overall effect on total cancer, but there was a significant interaction with sex with a reduction in risk of total cancer in women only...."

The above sentence should read "...a reduction in risk of total cancer in men only". To confirm this, I copied the following sentences from the Conclusions section of the abstract of the above-cited Su.Vi.Max study:

"Conclusions After 7.5 years, low-dose antioxidant supplementation lowered total cancer incidence and all-cause mortality in men but not in women. Supplementation may be effective in men only because of their lower baseline status of certain antioxidants, especially of beta carotene."

I wish to thank PubMed Central and JAMA for correcting this important error on their websites.

References

1: Gaziano JM, Sesso HD, Christen WG, Bubes V, Smith JP, MacFadyen J, Schvartz M, Manson JE, Glynn RJ, Buring JE. Multivitamins in the prevention of cancer in men: the Physicians' Health Study II randomized controlled trial. JAMA. 2012 Nov 14;308(18):1871-80. PubMed PMID: 23162860; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3517179.

Below is the link to the JAMA website page which contains the corrected version:

http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1380451

Below is the link to the PubMed Central version, which has been corrected, as of 7/31/2014:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3517179/

2: Hercberg S, Galan P, Preziosi P, Bertrais S, Mennen L, Malvy D, Roussel AM, Favier A, Briançon S. The SU.VI.MAX Study: a randomized, placebo-controlled trial of the health effects of antioxidant vitamins and minerals. Arch Intern Med. 2004 Nov 22;164(21):2335-42. Erratum in: Arch Intern Med. 2005 Feb 14;165(3):286. PubMed PMID: 15557412.

On 2014 Jul 05, David Keller commented:

An important factual error in this paper was corrected by JAMA on their website, as of 7/10/2014. A copy of this paper which is posted on the PubMed Central website was corrected, as of 7/31/2014.

For readers of the paper edition of JAMA, here is the incorrect statement, from the end of paragraph #5 of this paper's "Comment" section (1):

"In addition, the Supplementation en Vitamines et Mineraux Antioxydants (SU.VI.MAX) primary prevention trial (2) of 13,017 participants randomized to a low-dose combination of vitamin C, vitamin E, beta carotene, selenium, and zinc found no overall effect on total cancer, but there was a significant interaction with sex with a reduction in risk of total cancer in women only...."

The above sentence should read "...a reduction in risk of total cancer in men only". To confirm this, I copied the following sentences from the Conclusions section of the abstract of the above-cited Su.Vi.Max study:

"Conclusions After 7.5 years, low-dose antioxidant supplementation lowered total cancer incidence and all-cause mortality in men but not in women. Supplementation may be effective in men only because of their lower baseline status of certain antioxidants, especially of beta carotene."

I wish to thank PubMed Central and JAMA for correcting this important error on their websites.

References

1: Gaziano JM, Sesso HD, Christen WG, Bubes V, Smith JP, MacFadyen J, Schvartz M, Manson JE, Glynn RJ, Buring JE. Multivitamins in the prevention of cancer in men: the Physicians' Health Study II randomized controlled trial. JAMA. 2012 Nov 14;308(18):1871-80. PubMed PMID: 23162860; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3517179.

Below is the link to the JAMA website page which contains the corrected version:

http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1380451

Below is the link to the PubMed Central version, which has been corrected, as of 7/31/2014:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3517179/

2: Hercberg S, Galan P, Preziosi P, Bertrais S, Mennen L, Malvy D, Roussel AM, Favier A, Briançon S. The SU.VI.MAX Study: a randomized, placebo-controlled trial of the health effects of antioxidant vitamins and minerals. Arch Intern Med. 2004 Nov 22;164(21):2335-42. Erratum in: Arch Intern Med. 2005 Feb 14;165(3):286. PubMed PMID: 15557412.