Retraction for image issues forces correction of herbal remedies editorial

Back in March, we wrote about the case of Chinese researchers who pulled their 2011 paper in the Journal of Molecular Medicine on ginseng’s potential as a heart remedy because a couple of their images were suspect (duplicated was the word they’d used).

Turns out the journal suffered some collateral damage. JMM also has corrected a “Clinical Implications” article by a group of Canadian researchers about the defunct ginseng paper.

The article, “Use of ginseng to reduce post-myocardial adverse myocardial remodeling: applying scientific principles to the use of herbal therapies,”  appeared in the same issue as the original, but for some reason the correction notice appeared online only last week.

It states:

One paper (Huiqiu Yin et al., Ginsenoside-Rg1 enhances angiogenesis and ameliorates ventricular remodeling in a rat model of myocardial infarction) discussed in this Clinical Implications article has subsequently been retracted (10.1007/s00109-013-1018-0).

The now-corrected editorial has been cited twice, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

This marks the second time in the past week that we’ve seen instances of retractions leading to corrections or retractions of editorial-type articles.