In researcher's shoes, I would retract paper from IEEE, only then send open latter. Because they did not do this, does not looks like there's open letter is sin

In researcher's shoes, I would retract paper from IEEE, only then send open latter. Because they did not do this, does not looks like there's open letter is sincere, I am sure researcher's aware that there where multiple complaints regarding there's paper before ban. The least they could have done is acknowledge such failures in open letter.