Author: Alison McCook

Former Duke researcher at center of lawsuit lodges 16th retraction

ajrcmb-2016-55-issue-5-coverTwo former researchers at Duke University at the center of a lawsuit by a whistleblower to recoup millions in federal funding have lost yet another paper.

This is hardly the first retraction for Erin Potts-Kant, who used to work in the pulmonary lab of now-retired William Michael Foster. Earlier this year, a lawsuit filed by a former colleague of Potts-Kant and Foster was unsealed alleging that the pair — along with the university — included fraudulent data in materials involving more than 60 grants, worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

That is the legal side of their story. The science publishing side is that Potts-Kant and Foster have been steadily adding to their list of retractions — this paper represents her 16th, and his 13th.

Here’s the notice for “Nitric oxide mediates relative airway hyporesponsiveness to lipopolysaccharide in surfactant protein A-deficient mice:” Continue reading Former Duke researcher at center of lawsuit lodges 16th retraction

What should you do if a paper you’ve cited is later retracted?

RW logoWe all know that researchers continue to cite papers long after they’ve been retracted, posing concerns for the integrity of the literature. But what should you do if one of the papers you’ve cited gets retracted after you’ve already cited it?

We posed this question to some members of the board of directors of our parent non-profit organization, who offered up some valuable advice based on many years of experience working at journals and organizations such as the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

The first step: Determine whether the fact a reference has been retracted has any impact on the conclusions of your own paper. From Elizabeth Wager, publications consultant, Sideview; former chair, COPE:

Continue reading What should you do if a paper you’ve cited is later retracted?

Springer, BMC retracting nearly 60 papers for fake reviews and other issues

springerIn a massive cleanup, Springer and BioMed Central announced today they are retracting 58 papers for several reasons, including manipulation of the peer-review process and inappropriately allocating authorship.

The papers appeared in seven journals, and more are under investigation.

In a release issued today, the publishers note: Continue reading Springer, BMC retracting nearly 60 papers for fake reviews and other issues

Hospitalization of participant in child psych study prompted misconduct inquiry: Letter

Mani Pavuluri
Mani Pavuluri

The adverse event that prompted the University of Illinois at Chicago to shutter three trials by a child psychiatrist occurred when one of the study subjects was hospitalized.

According to a 2013 letter obtained by Retraction Watch through a public records request, the subject was admitted to a 10-day inpatient treatment program after exhibiting an increase in irritability and aggression, which prompted researcher Mani Pavuluri to notify the university’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) in January of that year. As a result, the university halted three studies by Pavuluri, sent out letters to 350 research subjects, and launched a misconduct inquiry.

Here’s how the document describes the event (with some details blacked out): Continue reading Hospitalization of participant in child psych study prompted misconduct inquiry: Letter

Post you may have missed: Top economists publish in predatory journals

A technical glitch prevented another story from reaching our email subscribers earlier today, so in case you missed it:

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Prominent heart researcher dismissed by Ontario university; colleagues appeal

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Morris Karmazyn

Earlier this month, Morris Karmazyn, an award-winning cardiovascular researcher who’s published hundreds of papers, was called into a meeting with the office of faculty relations at the University of Western Ontario, and terminated.

The reason? A series of image problems in some of his papers, raised by a former member of his lab. When Karmazyn, Canada Research Chair in Experimental Cardiology, was told it was a case of “misconduct,” he was floored: Continue reading Prominent heart researcher dismissed by Ontario university; colleagues appeal

Should journals abolish word limits for papers?

Source: Jonathan Joseph Bondhus
Source: Jonathan Joseph Bondhus

We’re asking ourselves that question after reading a recent paper which shows that — in the ecology literature, at least — longer papers gather more citations.

In “Citations increase with manuscript length, author number, and references cited in ecology journals,” Charles Fox at the University of Kentucky and his colleagues found exactly what the title specifies — ecology papers published between 2009 and 2012 received more citations if they were longer, included more authors, and/or had a longer list of references.

It wasn’t a big difference, the authors note in Ecology and Evolution: Continue reading Should journals abolish word limits for papers?

7 signs a scientific paper’s authorship was bought

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Maria Sol Bernardez Sarria
Peggy Mason
Peggy Mason

Did you know there is a black market for scientific papers? Unfortunately, there is a growing trend of authors purchasing a spot on the author list of papers-for-sale – and the better the journal, the higher the price. This worrisome trend has been on the minds of Peggy Mason at the University of Chicago and Maria Sol Bernardez Sarria of Yale University, formerly associated with the Ethics Committee of the Society for Neuroscience, which publishes the Journal of Neuroscience (Mason as Chair from 2013 to 2015, and Bernardez Sarria as assistant). In this capacity, they regularly scanned several websites and journals for ethics-related information, and developed an approach that might give away sold authorship. Continue reading 7 signs a scientific paper’s authorship was bought

Psst…did you hear? The effect of gossip on misconduct

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Brandon Vaidyanathan

If scientists are hesitant to formally report their colleagues when they suspect them of misconduct, can simply gossiping about their concerns in informal settings – at meetings, conferences, etc – clean up the literature? That’s a question Brandon Vaidyanathan and his colleagues tried to answer in “Gossip as Social Control: Informal Sanctions on Ethical Violations in Scientific Workplaces,” published last month in Social Problems. We spoke with Vaidyanathan, now the director of research at The H.E. Butt Family Foundation and Public Policy Fellow at the University of Notre Dame, about how scientists use gossip to warn others of potential misconduct – and whether it works.

Retraction Watch: What prompted you to discuss the role gossip can play in scientific misconduct? Continue reading Psst…did you hear? The effect of gossip on misconduct

Ever heard of China’s “five don’ts of academic publishing?”

castNo country is immune to misconduct — but some are being more proactive than others.

China, for one, has issued a policy dubbed the “5 don’ts of academic publishing,” which appear to specifically target the ways in which researchers have subverted the peer-review process or hired outsiders to help them with their manuscripts.

An announcement signed by the The Chinese Association for Science and Technology (CAST), Ministry of Education, Ministry of Science and Technology, Health and Family Planning Commission, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Academy of Engineering, and the Natural Science Foundation stipulates: Continue reading Ever heard of China’s “five don’ts of academic publishing?”