About a month ago, the New England Journal of Medicine told us that they didn’t “have any plans” to retract a paper by Anil Potti. Apparently, they’ve changed their minds.
Today, they posted this retraction notice:
To the editor: We would like to retract our article, “A Genomic Strategy to Refine Prognosis in Early-Stage Non–Small-Cell Lung Cancer,” which was published in the Journal on August 10, 2006. Using a sample set from a study by the American College of Surgeons Oncology Group (ACOSOG) and a collection of samples from a study by the Cancer and Leukemia Group B (CALGB), we have tried and failed to reproduce results supporting the validation of the lung metagene model described in the article. We deeply regret the effect of this action on the work of other investigators.
All of the authors, including Potti, signed the notice.
The paper marks the fourth retraction by Potti, joining papers in Nature Medicine, The Lancet Oncology, and the Journal of Clinical Oncology. It was published ” in 2006, corrected in 2007, and cited 290 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.
Ivan, do you have more information on the other retractions from Potti? I am going to do a short article for Medscape about the retraction, being that we covered the 2006 NEJM article. I had no idea that he had retracted other studies.
Thanks,
Roxanne
Hi Roxanne — you can find all our Potti coverage here: http://en.wordpress.com/tag/potti/
Here are the three previous retractions:
http://www.retractionwatch.com/2011/01/29/lancet-oncology-retracts-previously-questioned-anil-potti-paper/
http://www.retractionwatch.com/2011/01/07/nature-medicine-makes-it-official-retracting-anil-potti-paper/
http://www.retractionwatch.com/2010/11/17/jco-makes-it-official-retracting-paper-co-authored-by-anil-potti/
I’m curious – None of the other retraction announcements has an accompanying photograph of the researcher / PI involved. You don’t have a picture of Boldt despite his eighty odd retractions. So why single out this person, unless it’s for his ethnicity and foreign-sounding name?
Not quite sure what you’re trying to suggest, but you’re incorrect that “none of the other retraction announcements has an accompanying photograph of the researcher/PI involved.” Here are three examples:
Naoki Mori: http://www.retractionwatch.com/2011/01/27/and-thats-14-more-and-more-mori-retractions-as-japanese-cancer-journal-pulls-three-papers/
Silvia Bulfone-Paus: http://www.retractionwatch.com/2011/02/15/bulfone-paus-retraction-notice-appears-in-the-journal-of-biological-chemistry/
Carsten Carlberg: http://www.retractionwatch.com/2010/11/12/more-on-the-latest-cell-retraction-pi-says-a-graduate-student-was-at-fault/
We simply don’t have a photo of Joachim Boldt, or we’d have used one by now.