Last week, we reported that the Scandinavian Journal of Immunology had noted that a 2002 paper by Silvia Bulfone-Paus and colleagues had been retracted, but hadn’t yet published the retraction notice. A commenter tipped us off this week that the notice is out:
Retraction: Enhanced Inhibition of Tumour Growth and Metastasis, and Induction of Antitumour Immunity by IL-2-IgG2b Fusion Protein The following article from Scandinavian Journal of Immunology, ‘Enhanced Inhibition of Tumour Growth and Metastasis, and Induction of Antitumour Immunity by IL-2-IgG2b Fusion Protein’ by Budagian V, Nanni P, Lollini PL, Musiani P, Di Carlo E, Bulanova E, Paus R,
Bulfone-Paus S, published online on 29 April 2002 in Wiley Online Library (http://www.onlinelibrary. wiley.com), has been retracted by agreement between the corresponding ⁄ senior author, the journal Editor in Chief, Roland Jonsson and Blackwell Publishing, Ltd.The retraction has been agreed due to a finding of scientific misconduct within the laboratory where the experiments took place, and was brought to our attention by the scientific community.
The original paper has been cited three times, according to the Thomson Scientific Web of Knowledge.
On the one hand, the notice gives far less detail than the others in this case so far, which describe particular images that were manipulated. On the other, it doesn’t claim that the data have been reproduced, which several of them, including one in the EMBO Journal, do.
Journals have accepted 12 retractions of papers by Bulfone-Paus and colleagues. This is the fifth available notice.
There is a very interesting comment on The Scientist website copied and pasted here:
From http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/57898/
>>J Immunol. 183, 3004-13 contains duplication and data manipulation.
by Clare Francis
[Comment posted 2011-02-10 17:16:52]
J Immunol. 183, 3004-13. (2009) contains image duplication, and too consistent statistical errors.
Scutera S, Fraone T, Musso T, Cappello P, Rossi S, Pierobon D, Orinska Z, Paus R, Bulfone-Paus S, Giovarelli M.
Survival and migration of human dendritic cells are regulated by an IFN-alpha-inducible Axl/Gas6 pathway.
The left most panel in Figure 1A, IFN/DC 1d (1day) is the same as the right most panel in Figure 1C, GM-CSF+IFN (48 hours). The histograms show all the same features. Even if the same treatments for the same time were carried out on 2 different aliquots of the same starting cells you would not expect that all the features, bumps and dips, should appear exactly the same in both sets of histograms.
Figure 1 B lower panel. The 3 error bars on the IFN/DC columns are the same.
Figure 1 D. The error bars on the 500, 1000, and 10000 IU/ml IFN-alpha treatments are the same.
Figure 2A. Left most panel, Axl, is the same as the middle panel of figure1A (3d=3 days).
This may be simple data reuse, but they are the same.
Figure 4B. Right panel (6hrs) the error bars of the first 6 (left to right) columns are the same.
Figure 4C, left panel, the error bars on the first 3 (left to right) columns are the same.
Figure 5. The error bars on the left panel (middle and right most columns) are the same. >>
I don’t know if these allegations are true or not, but the entire Bulfone-Paus story starts to be disturbing.
ph Starck, all you have to do is look at the paper concerned.
Too consistent statisical errors “could” happen, it is true.
When images do not have any differencs we call them the same.
If you look at figure 1A in this paper you will find that:
“The left most panel in Figure 1A, IFN/DC 1d (1day) is the same as the right most panel in Figure 1C, GM-CSF+IFN (48 hours). The histograms show all the same features.”
The explanation for why this does not fit with the kind of assay performed is that “even if the same treatments for the same time were carried out on 2 different aliquots of the same starting cells you would not expect that all the features, bumps and dips, should appear exactly the same in both sets of histograms.”
Bernard Soares.
Well, it looks to me as you might be right. I was wondering how this could be related to her being second last author, and then I saw that she is “first” equally contributing and corresponding author as well.
Can it be just very poor annotation of data, and careless figure preparation?