2018 was a busy year in retractions. (OK, they’ve all been busy for a while.) In what has become an annual tradition, our friends at The Scientist asked us to round up what we thought were the biggest retractions of the last 12 months. Head on over to see our picks.
Two months after Harvard and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital said they were requesting the retraction of more than 30 papers from a former cardiac stem cell lab there, two American Heart Association journals have retracted more than a dozen papers from the lab. Yesterday, Circulation retracted three papers, and Circulation Research retracted 10. All 13 were … Continue reading Anversa cardiac stem cell lab earns 13 retractions
More than four and a half years after questions were first raised about work in a cardiac stem cell lab at Harvard and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a year and a half after the Brigham and Partners Healthcare paid $10 million to settle allegations of fraud in the lab’s data, a month after Harvard … Continue reading Journals stamp expressions of concern on 15 papers from Anversa’s cardiac stem cell lab
A group of Harvard stem cell researchers who already have one retraction and an expression of concern now have a correction. This one’s in Circulation Research, and it involves an image that previously had been flagged as suspicious in our comments. The group is led by Piero Anversa, who as we reported last year is … Continue reading Bad image prompts correction of Harvard-Brigham stem cell paper by Anversa
The recent criminal indictment of a medical school professor and former scientific advisor to Cassava Sciences on fraud charges for manipulating images in scientific papers and applications for federal funding is a “rare” outcome for such alleged actions that “sends a very, very powerful message.” That’s according to lawyers who have worked on research misconduct … Continue reading ‘Rare’ criminal charges for data manipulation in Cassava case send a ‘powerful message’: lawyers
A deluge of bizarre and malicious emails targeting a professor at Harvard Medical School has left him reeling, while raising questions about the smear campaign’s use of a popular online forum where scientists publicly critique research. Joseph Loscalzo sent a letter to PubPeer, the online forum, in September describing an “aggressive cyberstalking and harassment campaign” … Continue reading Cyberstalking pits Harvard professor against PubPeer
In my prior career as an investigative science journalist and now as a whistleblower lawyer, I’ve seen institutions react to allegations of scientific fraud in two ways. The first could be called “Investigate and Disclose.” This strategy was exemplified by Bell Laboratories’ 2002 investigation of allegations that Jan Hendrik Schön, a member of the technical … Continue reading Guest post: When whistleblowers need lawyers
The University of Wyoming has requested that journals retract 33 papers by a former associate dean and “highly cited researcher” at the institution. The news came just a week after we broke the story that heart researcher Jun Ren had been demoted following an earlier investigation. At the time, a university spokesperson told us that … Continue reading University’s story changes: It requested 33 retractions, not ‘several’
A former associate dean for research at the University of Wyoming who was named as one of Clarivate’s Highly Cited Researchers for 2021 was sanctioned by the university years ago, Retraction Watch has learned. Jun Ren, who studies the heart and diabetes, left Wyoming sometime in 2019 or 2020, according to a press release noting … Continue reading Exclusive: Former associate dean and ‘highly cited researcher’ was demoted by university
A former Harvard researcher has agreed to pay $215,000 to settle allegations that he used bogus data in a grant application to the National Institutes of Health — and the teaching hospital where he worked has already repaid more than $900,000 in grant funds. The settlement, of which we were just made aware, was announced … Continue reading False claims allegations cost Mass General, former Harvard researcher more than $1 million