A pharmacology researcher at the University of Pennsylvania is up to four retractions for problems with the data in his articles after a neurology journal pulled three papers late last month.
According to the Journal of Neurotrauma, a Mary Ann Liebert title, William Armstead – who holds a research professorship in Anesthesiology and Critical Care at Penn [please see an update on this post] – requested the retraction of three articles while informing that, in his words:
substantive questions have arisen regarding the findings, presentation and conclusions reported in the paper that could not be answered with available source data.
But beyond that, Armstead – who has not responded to a request for comment from Retraction Watch – left things a bit of a mystery.
Here’s the notice for “Sex and Age Differences in Epinephrine Mechanisms and Outcomes after Brain Injury,” which the journal published in 2017:
Dr. William Armstead, the corresponding author of the article entitled, “Sex and Age Differences in Epinephrine Mechanisms and Outcomes after Brain Injury” (by William M. Armstead, John Riley, and Monica S. Vavilala; J Neurotrauma 2017;34(8):1666–1675; DOI: 10.1089/neu.2016.4770) has requested, via email, a full retraction of the published paper since “substantive questions have arisen regarding the findings, presentation and conclusions reported in the paper that could not be answered with available source data.”
On three separate occasions, both the publisher and editor requested additional information detailing the specifics of the questions which were raised that invalidated the findings in the study, but did not receive a response from Dr. Armstead. Despite being unable to ascertain more unambiguous information, the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Neurotrauma agreed to Dr. Armstead’s request for a retraction after receiving agreements from the article’s coauthors.
Notably, Dr. Armstead also requested the retraction of two additional articles published in Journal of Neurotrauma,1,2 making the same claim for all three papers. The two other articles are retracted separately.3,4
The editor and publisher of Journal of Neurotrauma is committed to preserving the accuracy of scientific literature.
The two other papers are “Inhaled nitric oxide protects cerebral autoregulation and reduces hippocampal neuronal cell necrosis after traumatic brain injury in newborn and juvenile pigs,” from 2019, which is not yet marked as retracted, and “Norepinephrine protects cerebral autoregulation and reduces hippocampal necrosis after traumatic brain injury via blockade of ERK MAPK and IL-6 in juvenile pigs,” which appeared in 2016.
Armstead’s earlier retraction was in 2017, of a 2013 article in Neurological Research that he wrote with Christian Kreipke while the two were at Wayne State University in Detroit. As readers may recall, Kreipke in 2018 received a five-year funding ban from the U.S. Office of Research Integrity for falsification of data and other misconduct – punishment he had spent years fighting in court.
Update, 7/21/22, 1530 UTC: We obtained, through a public records request, correspondence between one of Armstead’s co-authors and the Journal of Neurotrauma.
Like Retraction Watch? You can make a one-time tax-deductible contribution by PayPal or by Square, or a monthly tax-deductible donation by Paypal to support our work, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, add us to your RSS reader, or subscribe to our daily digest. If you find a retraction that’s not in our database, you can let us know here. For comments or feedback, email us at [email protected].