A new retraction notice in the Journal of Applied Physiology gives only a hint at the problems in the paper, but what it does say has led us to a story about one of its co-authors.
Here’s the notice, from a team at Duke:
Auten RL, Mason SN, Potts-Kant EN, Chitano P, Foster WM. Early life ozone exposure induces adult murine airway hyperresponsiveness through Effects on airway permeability. J Appl Physiol; doi:10.1152/japplphysiol.01368.2012.—After publication of the Articles in PresS version of this article, the authors became aware that the primary data used to calculate the in vivo pulmonary mechanics results were inconsistent with the machine-generated raw data, making the data presented in Figure 2 unreliable. We offer our formal apologies for this error and for any inconvenience associated with the publication of the article. The paper is therefore being retracted by the American Physiological Society at the request of Dr. Auten and with the approval of the co-uthors.
Please note that an effort was made to contact all authors. However, a response was not received from E.N. Potts-Kant.
Potts-Kant is Erin Nicole Potts-Kant, who is apparently no longer working at Duke. She may have bigger concerns than a retraction, however. In late March, about a week before the retraction notice appeared online, she was arrested on embezzlement charges. As The Herald Sun reported:
The charges stem from the alleged misuse of Duke University procurement cards that were in her name while she was an employee of the Duke University Health System.
She allegedly used the cards for $14,616.34 in merchandise from Amazon.com, Target, Walmart, and TigerDirect between Dec. 12, 2008, and Nov. 6, 2012.
Potts-Kant was released on $10,000 bail. She also holds a U.S. patent along with some of her former Duke colleagues, for a way to treat lung disease.
We’ve contacted the corresponding author of the paper for more details about how these errors came to the team’s attention, and asked Duke about the status of the case.
Speak of “digging up the dirt”… Reminds me slightly of a case in New York where a Lab Post-Grad was discharged by email because they couldn’t find him; then later was arrested for allegedly removing and attempting to sell valuable laboratory equipment. Turns out he was a con man from way back. Fascinating story.
PS: The full story is in my blog under “Amazing Facts About Dr. Hosseinkhani”. At least he didn’t kill the mice.
How do we find your blog?
Hint: click Conrad’s name.
What blog? No, seriously. It’s conradseitz.wordpress.com and it is a free service of wordpress that provides basic but complete editing tools and encouragement… I’ve already got two followers! (One is my father.) I am putting in my true–but–bizarre factlets(such as the story about Dr Hosseinkhani), some short stories that so far are all true, and besides venting my spleen about medical costs and other societal problems. It is updated on an irregular basis once or twice a week at present.
Reblogged this on The Firewall.
Great investigative reporting, Ivan. Please keep us informed.
“co-uthors” ?
The Urban Dictionary describes an Uthor that as “A thing you wish to be but never can reach. You can watch it, but not touch it.”
Not sure I want to be any of the authors at this moment!
As far as embezzlement, “innocent until proven guilty”! I’ve certainly purchased lab stuff from tigerdirect or target because they offer much better deals than the standard University vendors – for example, we needed to be able to have part of a room dark for computer graphics and part light for other people doing other work. The U. would have charged us several thousand to re-wire the lighting. Target charged $20 for a multi-bulb lamp.
Between Hellinga, Potti, and now this, Duke is certainly facing its share of retractions / academic problems. Maybe it is time to call it a wrap and shut it down.