Retraction Watch readers may remember a few posts about Azza El-Remessy, an eye researcher based at the University of Georgia (UGA) who had several papers retracted. One of the retraction notices explained that UGA found El-Remessy had “committed research misconduct by falsification or fabrication.”
Today, we have an update on the story in Science. As our Victoria Stern writes: Continue reading Why did a university pay a scientist found guilty of misconduct $100,000?
Four hundred eighty-six authors have been found guilty of misconduct by the Chinese government, the fall-out from a sweep of retractions by one journal earlier this year.
In April, Tumor Biology retracted 107 papers that had been accepted based on faked reviews. Since many of the authors were based in China, the country’s Ministry of Science and Technology (MST) launched an investigation. On Friday, the news outlet Xinhua reported the results of the government’s investigation:
Continue reading Nearly 500 researchers guilty of misconduct, says Chinese gov’t investigation
A business journal has retracted a 2016 paper about how social media can encourage young consumers to become devoted to particular brands, after discovering flaws in the data and findings.
The paper—published in South Asian Journal of Global Business Research, now called South Asian Journal of Business Studies—was retracted in June 2017, after the journal learned of flaws that called the “validity of the data and reported findings” into question.
Here’s the retraction notice for “Evaluating the influence of social media on brand sacralization: an empirical study among young online consumers”: Continue reading Study of social media retracted when authors can’t provide data
The week at Retraction Watch featured an update on a Harvard lab whose PI is subject to a restraining order by one of his grad students, and the retraction of a paper that used male-only pronouns. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: Continue reading Weekend reads: Subscription journals doomed?; Are scientists most often wrong?; “Buxom grapefruits”
A pair of Canadian scientists may be running out of options to save their laboratories, which have been permanently closed based on findings of research misconduct.
Sylvia Asa, once the head of the largest hospital diagnostic laboratory in Canada, and her husband and collaborator Shereen Ezzat, have spent almost five years fighting allegations of research misconduct involving data falsification and fabrication in more than a dozen published papers. The couple’s work has been scrutinized by their employer, University Health Network (UHN), a healthcare system affiliated with the University of Toronto, in two investigations. The investigations did not find evidence that Asa or Ezzat were directly involved in image falsification or fabrication; however, they concluded that, as supervisors, they failed to conform to accepted standards and practices as they related to scientific rigor and accountability.
After the first investigation, UHN decided to temporarily close both Asa and Ezzat’s labs. After the second, the UHN decided to make that closure permanent. The couple have had three papers retracted and at least one correction.
Recently, the pair faced yet another setback. After they asked an Ontario court to review two of UHN’s decisions, on July 13, a judge found no fault with either one. Justice Ian Nordheimer, one of three judges who considered Asa and Ezzat’s request, said in his written opinion: Continue reading Toronto wife-husband research team lose bid to re-open labs
A journal has retracted a 2012 paper after determining that the authors had already published it elsewhere.
According to the retraction notice, the editors-in-chief of the Journal of Occupational Medicine and Toxicology concluded that the article had been published in another journal—In Vitro Cellular & Developmental Biology – Animal—the previous month. The authors, however, did not agree to the retraction.
The research, led by Ali Khavanin, who is based at Tarbiat Modares University in Tehran, Iran and is corresponding author on both papers, evaluated whether the vibrations from industrial machinery can harm hearing in rabbits (1, 2).
Here’s the retraction notice for “Assessment of the influence of whole body vibration on Cochlear function”: Continue reading Journal retracts paper it says authors published twice. Authors disagree.
Regular Retraction Watch readers may recall a remarkable story from January involving Harvard’s Lee Rubin and one of his graduate students. As we reported in Science at the time, the graduate student, Gustavo German, said he had been subjected to a forced psychiatric evaluation as “an act of revenge by Rubin, retaliation prompted by German’s allegation of scientific misconduct against Rubin and two of his students.” And a judge “agreed with German, concluding [last August] that Rubin was ‘motivated by bias and revenge, not by a legitimate interest in keeping German safe.'”
That led to a restraining order that required Rubin to remain 100 feet from German at all times — including in the lab where German was working on his PhD.
Today, we have an update on the story, also in Science: “At Harvard, extraordinary court battle between Ph.D. student and prominent researcher grinds on.” As our Alison McCook writes: Continue reading The Harvard lab head, the grad student, and the restraining order: An ongoing saga
A 2014 paper containing data manipulated by a former graduate student has finally been retracted, two years after the U.S. Office of Research Integrity (ORI) published its findings.
In August 2015, the ORI published a report that Peter Littlefield, who was working on his PhD at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), had committed “research misconduct by falsifying and/or fabricating data” in two papers. Littlefield agreed to correct or retract the papers–one published in Chemistry & Biology and the other in Science Signaling.
When we contacted Chemistry & Biology back in August 2015, a spokesperson for Cell Press told us the journal was figuring out “the best way to correct the scientific record.”
Apparently that took two years. In the meantime, the journal did not issue an expression of concern or otherwise notify readers of the issues. Continue reading Why did it take a journal two years to retract a paper after a misconduct finding?
We’ve all heard horror stories of lab disputes that can quickly spin out of control. (Such as a graduate student obtaining a restraining order against his supervisor, which we covered earlier this year for Science.) Naturally, prospective students want to do their homework before committing to a particular laboratory or supervisor. A new website, QCist, is trying to make that process easier, by letting students rate labs. It’s still new – only several dozen lab heads have been rated so far, mostly from the U.S. – but founder and Executive Director Qian-Chen Yong has plans for it to grow much bigger. We spoke with Yong, currently a research fellow at the Cancer Research Institute, Baylor Scott & White Health in Texas — who completed a postdoc at Texas A&M Health Science Center and a PhD at the National University of Singapore — about the plan to keep the site from becoming a place to smear a tough boss’s reputation.
Retraction Watch: What inspired you to create this site?
Continue reading Looking to avoid a bad lab? A new site wants to help
Against the authors’ objections, Nature Methods has added an expression of concern to a 2017 paper that drew fire for suggesting a common gene editing technique could cause widespread collateral damage to the genome. The latest note — the second to be added in two months — alerts readers to an alternative interpretation of the findings.
When “Unexpected mutations after CRISPR–Cas9 editing in vivo” was published May 30, it immediately drew criticism from many of the top scientists working with CRISPR, including those associated with companies seeking to develop CRISPR-based therapies for humans. Share prices for the two largest companies pursuing CRISPR therapies, Editas Medicine and Intellia Therapeutics, dropped following publication of the article.
On June 14, the journal published a notice to alert readers to “technical criticisms” of the paper. Apparently, that wasn’t sufficient, because the journal is now providing more details on the nature of the criticisms, despite the objections of the paper’s authors:
Continue reading Controversial CRISPR paper earns second editorial note