Author: Adam Marcus

Transparency in action as genetics paper falls to fraud — and lots of it

Talk about a career-killer. The following retraction, from Genetics and Molecular Research, an online journal, spares nothing in its evisceration of an unfortunate graduate student who compiled an impressive list of transgressions in a single manuscript.

The 2010 article, titled “Genetics and biochemical analyses of sensor kinase A in Bacillus subtilis sporulation,” came from the lab of Masaya Fujita at the University of Houston. The first author was a now-former graduate student named Jean-Calvin Nguele. Whether the title is accurate, we can’t say, but apparently not much else was.

Here’s the notice: Continue reading Transparency in action as genetics paper falls to fraud — and lots of it

Nursing researcher Scott Weber draws penalties from ORI in plagiarism, fraud scandal

Scott Weber, the nursing researcher whose publishing misconduct has cost him posts at the University of Pittsburgh and Walden University, has been sanctioned by the Office of Research Integrity for his misdeeds.

According to a link posted today on the ORI website: Continue reading Nursing researcher Scott Weber draws penalties from ORI in plagiarism, fraud scandal

“Ill communication” leads to retraction of tissue paper (sorry) for authorship issues

Like many researchers, Frank Walboomers frequently checks the scientific databases to see when his latest publications appear. He was doing so a few months ago when he came across his name on an article — “Effects of pro-inflammatory cytokines on mineralization potential of rat dental pulp stem cells” — published online in July in the Journal of Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine, that he hadn’t written.

The first author of the paper, Xuechao Yang, was a former doctoral student in Walboomers’ laboratory at Radboud University Nijmegen. It didn’t take Walboomers long to figure out what had happened: Continue reading “Ill communication” leads to retraction of tissue paper (sorry) for authorship issues

Lack of ethical approval leads to JCO retraction

The Retraction Watch category for “lack of IRB approval” as a reason for retraction — a subject we covered in our most recent Lab Times column — is growing. First there were the 90-odd retractions by Joachim Boldt, then three by Australian researchers studying Aussie-rules football players. Now, we learn that the Journal of Clinical Oncology has retracted a paper over concerns that the authors failed to obtain ethical approval to conduct their study.

The 2010 publication, by researchers at Saitama Medical University in Japan, reported on an analysis of 314 lymphoma patients being treated with chemotherapy — some, and perhaps none, of whom knew they were being studied.

Here’s the notice, which appeared this month: Continue reading Lack of ethical approval leads to JCO retraction

Stapel inquiry widens to the University of Groningen, University of Amsterdam

The University of Groningen (UG) has launched an investigation the conduct of Diederik Stapel, the social psychologist accused of fabricating his research.

According to a Google translation of a UG press release: Continue reading Stapel inquiry widens to the University of Groningen, University of Amsterdam

More on Hattori case from co-author: Did grudge lead to scientist’s fall?

We have an update on the case of Yoshiyuki Hattori, the Japanese endocrinologist who has had a half-dozen papers retracted because of issues involving reused data. We’ve reported on some of those retractions, and report on three new ones here.

As a trainee, Hattori spent some time in England, where he met Steven Gross, a prominent pharmacology researcher at Cornell. Gross was impressed with the young physician-scientist, and invited him back to his New York City laboratory to do a postdoc.

Gross’ name appears on one of the retracted articles, “NO suppresses while peroxynitrite sustains NF-κB: a paradigm to rationalize cytoprotective and cytotoxic actions attributed to NO,” which appeared in 2004 in the journal Cardiovascular Research and has been cited 42 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

According to the notice: Continue reading More on Hattori case from co-author: Did grudge lead to scientist’s fall?

The ‘Goldilocks’ retraction? Revealing differences in how several neurology journals handled related problems

Four neurology journals have retracted articles by a Japanese researcher who admitted to having made “mistakes” in his handling of data. Although the cases are related, the way the journals have handled the  notices is startlingly different. One chose to say nothing, one chose to say little, while two went for full — or at least, approximately that — disclosure.

Guess which ones we like the most? Continue reading The ‘Goldilocks’ retraction? Revealing differences in how several neurology journals handled related problems

Brown bear, brown bear, what do you see? I see fraud in sexual selection infanticide commentary

From the, No Further Explanation Required files:

The journal Animal Behaviour has retracted a 2009 article by an international group of researchers who, well, did just about everything one could do wrong with a paper.

Here’s the notice, res ipsa loquitur: Continue reading Brown bear, brown bear, what do you see? I see fraud in sexual selection infanticide commentary

Another retraction of IRB-free paper from Aussie sports medicine group

There’s another retraction from the Australian researchers who failed to obtain institutional review board (IRB) approval for their studies of rugby players and footballers.

The 2010 paper, in BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders — which had already retracted two other articles from the group — was titled “The effect of a sports chiropractic manual therapy intervention on the prevention of back pain, hamstring and lower limb injuries in semi-elite Australian Rules footballers: A randomized controlled trial.”

The editor of the journal had added this comment to the PDFs associated with the paper on August 3, a day after our post on the previous two retractions: Continue reading Another retraction of IRB-free paper from Aussie sports medicine group

Publishing scandal costs nursing researcher his post at online university

Scott Weber

Scott Weber, the nursing researcher accused of manipulating references and other publishing misconduct in at least seven retracted articles, has lost his position at Walden University, Retraction Watch has learned.

We noticed the other day that Weber’s name had disappeared from the Walden website and put in a call to the institution. A source there told us that Weber — a part-time faculty member who had been hoping for a full-time appointment at the school — apologized when confronted about the fraud.

The source, who did not want to be identified, said Continue reading Publishing scandal costs nursing researcher his post at online university