Is it reasonable to not publish data from research for fear of undermining previous work? I am a postdoc working in a lab where we are finishing a large project with multiple measures (psychological, behavioral, etc). Some of the measures didn't turn out to have significant results (primarily for methodological reasons I believe). I suggested to the Lead Investigator that we write up some of these as "we tried these measures and didn't get the results we expected for various reasons: here are some lessons we have learned". The reply was:


  My immediate response is not all that positive – especially if it undermined our published papers ... if you’ve published a result then further publications shouldn’t raise more limitations that should have been mentioned in the original publication. 


I don't believe the results will undermine anything but, that aside, is his reasoning for not publishing results valid? Also, to be clear, we haven't yet published anything from this work.

I understand him to mean that he doesn't want the results published because they might go against previous work and completely object to such a thought. Have I possibly misinterpreted his words?
The statement you quote sounds terrible. It points in a direction where things approach the unethical. Publication of negative results are less common that positive although, I suspect, negative results ARE more common than positive. Since I am in an experimental field, I have never obtained the perfect results and always end up describing what went wrong; and I am not alone. Anyway, I think your idea of writing up your experience is good. Naturally, I cannot judge the merits of the experiences in terms of publicability.

So I think your intention is very sound and the reaction of the lead investigator suspect (or at best narrow-minded).

To me " further publications shouldn’t raise more limitations that should have been mentioned in the original publication" (if verbatim from the lead investigator and with my emphasis) sounds as if limitations were not included on purpose in the original study. So, if that is true then I can understand the nervousness. It sounds almost fraudulent.