Month: February 2017

When does animal research become unnecessary and cruel? A paper’s methods give a biologist pause

Elies Bik

Microbiologist Elies Bik is well-known for applying a close eye to studies, and has spent years anonymously submitting reports on plagiarism and image duplication to journal editors. Last year, she published an analysis of work, with troubling results – that 1 in 25 biomedical papers contains inappropriate duplications in images. She’s never stopped reading papers closely, and recently flagged one on Twitter for concerns about its methodology. Although Bik is not against animal research, she said the treatments rats faced in the paper made her queasy – and didn’t seem justified. She explains her reasoning below.

Continue reading When does animal research become unnecessary and cruel? A paper’s methods give a biologist pause

Stuck in limbo: What happens to papers flagged by journals as potentially problematic?

Hilda Bastian from the National Library of Medicine

Expressions of concern, as regular Retraction Watch readers will know, are rare but important signals in the scientific record. Neither retractions nor corrections, they alert readers that there may be an issue with a paper, but that the full story is not yet clear. But what ultimately happens to papers flagged by these editorial notices? How often are they eventually retracted or corrected, and how often do expressions of concern linger indefinitely? Hilda Bastian and two colleagues from the U.S. National Library of Medicine, which runs PubMed, recently set out to try to answer those questions. We talked to her about the project by email.

Retraction Watch (RW): The National Library of Medicine recently decided to index expressions of concern, which it hadn’t before. Why the change? Continue reading Stuck in limbo: What happens to papers flagged by journals as potentially problematic?

Coauthor’s past misconduct prompts dep’t chair to retract Diabetes study

A department chair of a Swedish university asked to retract a 2010 study in Diabetes after none of the authors could explain image-related ambiguities.

The matter prompted particular attention because the paper’s first author, Pontus Almer Boström, had been found guilty of scientific misconduct by the University of Gothenburg in 2012, after Jan Borén noted some irregularities in data calculated by Boström. At that point, the research group combed the data to identify further issues arising from Boström’s work, and didn’t find any.

But last summer, when a user on PubPeer raised questions about some of the images in the 2010 paper, the matter was brought back into focus. According to Borén, they found “no evidence of scientific misconduct in this study.” But Boström had left the university in 2009 and could not be reached, the corresponding author had passed away, and the remaining co-authors hadn’t stayed in the field. So Borén decided it would be best to retract the study to avoid any “lingering questions.”

Here’s the retraction notice for “The SNARE Protein SNAP23 and the SNARE-Interacting Protein Munc18c in Human Skeletal Muscle Are Implicated in Insulin Resistance/Type 2 Diabetes,” in which Borén thanks “Peer 1″ on PubPeer for “detecting the ambiguities and bringing them to our attention:” Continue reading Coauthor’s past misconduct prompts dep’t chair to retract Diabetes study

Authors couldn’t find a patient to give consent for case report. Then the patient found the report.

When a group of authors decided to write up a curious case of a 35-year-old woman with a mysterious mass that took 11 years to be diagnosed, they tried repeatedly to contact the patient for her permission. When they couldn’t reach her, they published the paper anyway, removing any identifiable information.

But the report apparently included enough details for the patient to recognize herself — and when she read the paper, she asked the authors to retract it.

That’s the story according to the publisher of the 2016 case study, which recently retracted it with this notice:

Continue reading Authors couldn’t find a patient to give consent for case report. Then the patient found the report.

Weekend reads: They committed misconduct, then earned $100 million in grants; collateral publishing damage

The week at Retraction Watch featured a frank admission of error by a Nobel Prize winner, and a look at five “diseases” plaguing science. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: Continue reading Weekend reads: They committed misconduct, then earned $100 million in grants; collateral publishing damage

Editor steps down from journal while it investigates citation irregularities

Artemi Cerdà

The editor of the journal Land Degradation & Development has stepped down amidst an investigation into citation problems at the journal.

The editor, Artemi Cerdà of the University of Valencia in Spain, has also disappeared from the list of editors at two journals published by the European Geosciences Union, which recently announced that one of its editors had engaged in citation manipulation.

Here’s a statement we just received from a spokesperson for Wiley, which publishes Land Degradation & Development:

Continue reading Editor steps down from journal while it investigates citation irregularities

Neuroscientist flags errors in his days-old paper “for the sake of science integrity”

Only days after his paper was published online, a neuroscientist has posted a comment on PubMed alerting readers to several duplication errors.

Despite the issues, which the researcher says were introduced into the final manuscript after peer review, he reassured readers that they do not influence the final conclusions in the paper.

On February 9, ten days after the article came online, corresponding author Garret Stuber at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill wrote a detailed comment on PubMed Commons, explaining that the “research community” had brought four figure-related errors to his attention. After investigating the concerns, Stuber discovered that the problems emerged after the peer-review process, “while revising the manuscript to comply with Nature Neuroscience’s final formatting guidelines.” In his note, he outlined the specific duplication issues that arose, which he says he plans to detail to the journal in a formal corrigendum letter.

Stuber alerted the scientific community about his PubMed comment via Twitter: Continue reading Neuroscientist flags errors in his days-old paper “for the sake of science integrity”

Does labeling bad behavior “scientific misconduct” help or hurt research integrity? A debate rages

Is eliminating the concept of “misconduct” a sign of progress in the fight for research integrity, or a step backward?

That’s the debate playing out in Australia, where a proposal from national research bodies would make it the latest country to embrace a broader definition of ethical lapses in research, doing away with the term “misconduct.” Proponents argue the change will encourage more reporting of all types of bad behavior—not just the most extreme forms such as data fabrication, which are typically associated with the term “misconduct.” But critics argue the move could soften enforcement, as every institution applies its own definitions of misbehavior. (To tell us what you think, take our poll at the bottom of the story.)

The proposal comes in the form of a revised edition of Australia’s national research code of conduct.  Continue reading Does labeling bad behavior “scientific misconduct” help or hurt research integrity? A debate rages

“False” results in retracted paper by senator are inaccurate, not fraudulent, say editors

Daniel Biss

Last week, we wrote about a somewhat remarkable retraction, of a 15-year-old paper by a current Illinois senator who used to be a mathematician. At the time, we were a bit perplexed by the language of the notice, which the senator — who helpfully took our call — couldn’t answer, since he wasn’t involved in drafting the notice.

We’ve since heard back from the journal that retracted the paper, which explained that their phrase that “most results are false” meant the findings by state senator Daniel Biss were inaccurate — not fraudulent.

Here’s more explanation from a joint statement sent to us by Jan van Mill and Jerry Vaughan, the editors in chief of Topology and its Applications:

Continue reading “False” results in retracted paper by senator are inaccurate, not fraudulent, say editors

Researcher loses biotech post after reportedly confessing to fraud

A researcher has lost his position as a Chief Scientific Officer at a DNA sequencing company after he reportedly confessed to fabricating data in a 2015 paper, now retracted by the Journal of Cell Biology.

According to the CEO of Karmagenes, when the company learned about the retraction, the staff “immediately” conferred and decided the researcher — Pranav Ullal — should no longer serve as one of the company’s two CSOs.

Karmagenes CEO Kyriakos Kokkoris told us:

Continue reading Researcher loses biotech post after reportedly confessing to fraud