Another article co-authored by Australian journalist Maryanne Demasi will be marked with an expression of concern for image duplication, Retraction Watch has learned.
Demasi’s reporting has cast doubt on statins and raised the possibility of a link between wi-fi and brain tumors – controversial claims she and co-authors have previously told us they believe made her scientific publications a target of critique. She has not responded to our request for comment on the forthcoming expression of concern.
Following an investigation by the University of Adelaide into allegations of image manipulation in Demasi’s PhD thesis in rheumatology, one paper that resulted from the dissertation was retracted and another was marked with an expression of concern.
According to the investigation report, Demasi “admitted that she had duplicated or probably duplicated the relevant impugned images” for three out of 14 allegations. She and some experts the investigation panel consulted said such duplication was acceptable at the time, “albeit they considered duplication was not best practice.”
The forthcoming expression of concern is for a 2006 article in Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) titled “Endothelial cell COX-2 expression and activity in hypoxia.” The paper has been cited 27 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science, and not at all since March 2021.
David Vaux, of the Walter & Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne (and a member of the board of directors of The Center for Scientific Integrity, our parent non-profit organization), told Retraction Watch that he first reported duplications in the paper to BBA and the University of Adelaide in 2016.
The university referred the allegations to Royal Adelaide Hospital to investigate. In January 2019, the hospital dismissed the allegations from a preliminary assessment as having “no prima facie case,” Vaux said. He appealed to the Australian Research Integrity Committee.
In August of this year, he learned that the Central Adelaide Local Health Network, which includes the Royal Adelaide Hospital, had looked at the case again and contacted BBA to recommend the journal publish an editorial expression of concern.
BBA’s editor in chief Ulrich Brandt confirmed to Vaux earlier this month that the journal would do so, but the expression of concern is not yet online. Brandt has not responded to our request for comment.
Posts on PubPeer beginning in 2018 detail similarities in different blot lanes of one figure in the paper, and questions about data points in another figure not matching those in Demasi’s thesis.
In March of last year, sleuth Elisabeth Bik wrote:
Not only appear the four lanes to be showing the same blot strip, the molecular weights and aspect ratios appear to have changed as well, suggesting this is not a simple mistake.
None of the authors has replied on PubPeer. We’ve also emailed two addresses for corresponding author Michael James, and both bounced back.
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Demasi’s Substack is loaded with fearmongering about Covid-19 vaccines including the claim that boosters “overload” the immune system.
Add in her claims about a purported link between cellphones/Wi-Fi and brain tumors, and it appears Demasi is yet another victim of crank magnetism.
I don’t know how far outside the bounds of “best practice” her thesis was at the time she wrote it, so no comment there. I subscribe to Demasi’s substack, and I don’t think she fearmongers. She interviews and quotes MD’s who are experts (no, NOT Malone or other crazies). The link below to the recent BMJ article she wrote about the Covid vaccines is a good representative sample of her writing. I don’t think there is any misinformation there, only very important questions that need to be answered. I’m glad somebody like her is asking. Also, NO, I’m not an anti-vaxxer. I just had my fifth Covid jab. But we all have a right to know what Big Pharma is refusing to tell us, and the FDA is seemingly protecting them.
https://www.bmj.com/content/379/bmj.o2527
controversial claims she and co-authors have previously told us they believe made her scientific publications a target of critique.
Demasi may be correct there. In the course of her journalism, she showed herself to be comfortable with made-up evidence as long as it supported claims that she believed to be true. Naturally people wondered whether the same pattern was present in her earlier scientific work.
She and some experts the investigation panel consulted said such duplication was acceptable at the time, “albeit they considered duplication was not best practice.”
Has it ever been acceptable to reassemble WBs and present the copies as the results of different experiments, supporting different claims?