Author: Adam Marcus

Yes, Virginia, medical writers really do commit plagiarism, says a surgery retraction

Readers may recall a recent post on a study purporting to show that one of the best insurance policies against a retraction is to employ a medical writer. Well, a group of Iranian surgeons did just that. How’d it work out for them?

Of course, since you’re reading about this on Retraction Watch, you already know the answer to that one, don’t you?

The World Journal of Surgery has retracted a 2010 article written by hired guns who apparently decided to perform wordthievery rather than wordsmithery.

Here’s the notice (stated, oddly, as an “erratum” to the original paper): Continue reading Yes, Virginia, medical writers really do commit plagiarism, says a surgery retraction

Another unofficial record? Authors walk back arcane blue crab paper — 15 years later

Portunus trituberculatus, courtesy NOAA

If a paper that has never been cited is retracted, will it be missed?

Japanese researchers have retracted an obscure 1996 article in an equally obscure physics journal after concluding — some 15 years later — that their fundamental assertion was mistaken.

The paper, “Uptake and excretion of cobalt in the crustacean Portunus trituberculatus,” in  Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section B: Beam Interactions with Materials and Atoms, purported to show that a form of the element cobalt might be helpful in tracing the growth of Portunus trituberculatus, otherwise known as the blue crab.

That’s the world’s most harvested crab species and a particular favorite in Asia. But don’t confuse it with the Chesapeake Bay blue crab, Callinectes sapidus, of William Warner’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Beautiful Swimmers.

The problem with such elemental tracers, it seems, is that crabs moult repeatedly, shedding their shells, along with the elements that build up inside them. According to researchers from the Research Institute for Advanced Science and Technology and the Osaka Prefectural Fisheries Experimental Station, however, a volatile form of cobalt, previously undetected, could be a suitable element for tracing the growth of both crabs and prawns — another important aquaculture species in Asia — over time.

But that turned out to be a (shell)fish tale. Per the retraction notice, which appears in the May 15, 2011 issue of the journal: Continue reading Another unofficial record? Authors walk back arcane blue crab paper — 15 years later

Blood retracts two, including a disputed paper from the Karolinska Institute

The journal Blood has two retractions this month, one of which seems particularly interesting. So let’s deal with the other one first.

The paper, “MicroRNAs 15a/16-1 function as tumor suppressor genes in multiple myeloma,” appeared online in October 2010. But according to the retraction notice, the authors

have recently discovered that the cell lines used in their paper were inadvertently misidentified. The cell lines utilized in the paper have now been found to contain the bcr/abl translocation and most likely represent the K562 CML cell line, instead of MMS1 and RPM1 myeloma cell lines. Due to this issue, the relevance of the findings to myeloma and thus, the conclusions of the paper, are not supported by the data. The authors apologize to the readers, reviewers, and editors of Blood for publishing these erroneous data.

That seems straightforward enough, and we couldn’t find any evidence that this problem affected other publications.

The second paper, however, could be more significant. Continue reading Blood retracts two, including a disputed paper from the Karolinska Institute

Traffic violations: Plagiarism leads to retraction of transit modeling paper

Journal editors like to believe they are more than mere traffic cops. But here’s a case that makes us wonder.

Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review — yes, there are parts A-D of this — is retracting a 2009 paper which stole liberally from a 1996 article in a different journal from the same publisher, in this case Elsevier.

According to the notice, which appeared online earlier this year and in the July 2011 issue: Continue reading Traffic violations: Plagiarism leads to retraction of transit modeling paper

Retractile dysfunction? Author says journal yanked paper linking Viagra, Cialis to vision problem after legal threats

The British Journal of Ophthalmology has retracted a 2006 paper which purported to show a link between drugs for erectile dysfunction and a rare form of sudden vision loss called non-arteritic anterior ischaemic optic neuropathy, more commonly known as “Viagra blindness.”

That wouldn’t be terribly interesting, except for this: One of the authors of the paper, a researcher at the University of Alabama named Gerald McGwin Jr., told us that the journal retracted the article because it had become a tool in a lawsuit involving Pfizer, which makes Viagra, and, presumably, men who’d developed blindness after taking the drug:

The article just became too much of a pain in the rear end. It became one of those things where we couldn’t provide all the relevant documentation [to the university, which had to provide records for attorneys]

Ultimately, however, McGwin said that the BJO pulled the plug on the paper.

It was really the journal’s decision to take it out of the literature.

The retraction notice is mute on the reason for the retraction of the blindness paper (and, so far, our requests for comment seem to have fallen on deaf ears). Here’s all it says: Continue reading Retractile dysfunction? Author says journal yanked paper linking Viagra, Cialis to vision problem after legal threats

Data fraud at Emory leads to retractions of three cardiology papers

An investigation by Emory University in Atlanta has led to the retractions of three articles containing falsified data, but the ambiguous wording of the notices leaves us wondering if they are implying more than they state.

Two of the papers appeared in the journal Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology. The notices in ATVB implicate a researcher named Lian Zuo, who worked in Emory’s division of cardiology.

Here’s one: Continue reading Data fraud at Emory leads to retractions of three cardiology papers

Semen editorial costs Greenfield presidency of American College of Surgeons

courtesy University of Michigan

As we reported nearly two weeks ago, the eminent surgeon Lazar Greenfield recently lost his position as editor-in-chief of Surgery News over a Valentine’s Day editorial that some readers, particularly women, found offensive.  Surgery News is an in-house publication of the American College of Surgeons (although it’s published by Elsevier), and Greenfield was scheduled to take the gavel in October as the new president of the college.

No longer.

As two Retraction Watch readers have noted tonight, the surgery group has notified its members that Greenfield has stepped down from his official position with college. Here’s the letter that was sent today: Continue reading Semen editorial costs Greenfield presidency of American College of Surgeons

Want to avoid a retraction? Hire a medical writer, say medical writers

A team of Australian medical writers who  analyzed four decades worth of retractions has reached the conclusion — we trust you’re sitting — that people in their profession are more honest than, well, the rest of us.

According to the authors,  articles in the medical literature are substantially less likely than other papers to be retracted for any reason, including mistakes or misconduct, if they have a medical writer as a declared co-author. The same applies for articles produced with the help of drug and device makers, either financial support or authorship assistance, the study found. And when both occur, retractions are vanishingly rare. Indeed, they found no instance of a retraction resulting from misconduct.

The study, which appears in Current Medical Research & Opinion, has flaws, which we’ll lay out in a minute. Continue reading Want to avoid a retraction? Hire a medical writer, say medical writers

Forget chocolate on Valentine’s Day, try semen, says Surgery News editor. Retraction, resignation follow

We have a bizarre tale to relate involving the journal Surgery News, which recently lost its editor-in-chief over a rather strange editorial he wrote in the February issue of the magazine.

The ill-fated — and, we’ll stipulate, ill-advised — commentary has led to a de facto retraction of the entire publication — meaning that although no retraction notice exists that we’re aware of, neither does the issue exist in the publication’s archives.

But first, some important background. Surgery News is a trade magazine with a complicated structure. The publication, which describes itself as “the official newspaper of the American College of Surgeons [ACS],” is published by Elsevier, which supplies medical news through its International Medical News Group division. The society provides its own news, as well as the lead editor, a surgeon, who until recently was Lazar Greenfield. Greenfield, of the University of Michigan, also happens to be the president-elect of the ACS, twin responsibilities that put him at the pinnacle of influence for his specialty.

Now back to the offending editorial, which we’ll bring you in its entirety since 1) we think given the events that you should read the whole thing, and 2) because the ACS has taken the entire February issue off its website we can’t link to it even if we wanted to (more on that later). Under the heading “Gut Feelings,” Greenfield wrote (we added links): Continue reading Forget chocolate on Valentine’s Day, try semen, says Surgery News editor. Retraction, resignation follow

Another Cell retraction, and more questions than answers

A new retraction has appeared in the journal Cell. The article, “DNA-PKcs-PIDDosome: A Nuclear Caspase-2-Activating Complex with Role in G2/M Checkpoint Maintenance,” had initially appeared in February 2009.

According to the notice: Continue reading Another Cell retraction, and more questions than answers