Author: Adam Marcus

Joachim Boldt retraction tally drops by one, editors say (but record’s still safe)

As the news of Joachim Boldt’s staggering number of retractions leaps from Retraction Watch into the mainstream press, the consortium of journal editors retracting his studies has backtracked ever so slightly, announcing today that one of the 89 studies for which the German anesthesiologist lacked ethics approval in fact had such sanction.

According to the now-16 (Updated 3/7/11, as it is up from 11 several days ago) editors, LÄK-RLP,  the German body investigating the ethics component of the Boldt case: Continue reading Joachim Boldt retraction tally drops by one, editors say (but record’s still safe)

Plagiarism and other ‘negligence’ fell lung-estrogen paper

There’s parsing a-plenty in the American Journal of Physiology Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology this month. The journal has retracted a 2010 paper by researchers at Chiba University in Japan, who lifted much of their manuscript from an article by other scientists in a different publication.

The authors of the paper, “The estrogen paradox in pulmonary arterial hypertension,” confess that they misappropriated text. But how they do so is a case study in subtlety: Continue reading Plagiarism and other ‘negligence’ fell lung-estrogen paper

Ladies and gentlemen, we have an apparent retraction record holder: Joachim Boldt, at 89

It’s official.* Joachim Boldt now holds the record for the most retractions by a single author.

As we reported the other day, a group of anesthesia journals was on the verge of revealing a list of 89 articles by Joachim Boldt that would require retraction because the German researcher had failed to receive proper approval from ethics officials for his studies. Today, the coalition issued a letter making the retractions official.

The 89 papers join an earlier retraction in October.

Of note: Continue reading Ladies and gentlemen, we have an apparent retraction record holder: Joachim Boldt, at 89

Two more retractions for Mori make 16 — but not a record

Biochemical Journal has retracted two articles by Naoki Mori, bringing the total number of pulled papers by the Japanese cancer researcher to sixteen.

As with the previous Mori retractions, the latest ones — of papers published in 2007 and 2010 — involve unreliable images. Mori, you’ll recall, had recycled control blots from study to study over the years, and was dismissed from his academic post in August.

The 2007 paper, “Activation of hypoxia-inducible factor 1 in human T-cell leukaemia virus type 1-infected cell lines and primary adult T-cell leukaemia cells,” also included a frequent co-author Mariko Tomita, who has been implicated in the deception. It has been cited 15 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. The 2010 article, “Inhibition of Akt/GSK3β signalling pathway by Legionella pneumophila is involved in induction of T-cell apoptosis,” has not yet been cited.

In each case, the retraction notice is the same: Continue reading Two more retractions for Mori make 16 — but not a record

22 papers by Joachim Boldt retracted, and 67 likely on the way

Self-plagiarism alert: A very similar version of this post is being published online in Anesthesiology News, where one of us (AM) is managing editor.

Anesthesia & Analgesia has retracted 22 papers by Joachim Boldt, the discredited German anesthesiologist whose prolific career as a researcher has unraveled with stunning rapidity — and 67 more retractions are likely on the way from 10 other titles  that have published his work.

The 22 retractions, announced Feb. 25 on the journal’s website, come less than a month after the state medical board overseeing an investigation into Boldt’s publications said that it was looking into more than 90 of his articles out of concern that he had failed to obtain proper approval from an institutional review board for the work.

The board, Landesärztekammer Rheinland-Pfalz (LÄK-RLP), investigated 102 articles. Investigators could not find evidence of adequate IRB approval for 89 papers; for the remaining, 11 had IRB approval and two did not require it, according to the A&A notice, which was signed by  editor-in-chief Steven L. Shafer: Continue reading 22 papers by Joachim Boldt retracted, and 67 likely on the way

Crystal myth: 11 more retractions from crystallography journal after 2010 fakery

About a year ago, Acta Crystallographica Section E issued a bombshell editorial. The journal was pulling 70 papers from two groups of researchers at the same Chinese university after discovering that the structures they reported had been fakes.

As the editorial explained, the fraud was detected during a routine review of the structures by Ton Spek, of Utrecht University in The Netherlands. According to the editorial: Continue reading Crystal myth: 11 more retractions from crystallography journal after 2010 fakery

Korean ENT journal retracts 17 papers, citing ‘overlap’

A Mongolian gerbil (from EdShal on flickr) http://www.flickr.com/photos/21507874@N07/2469088105

The Korean Journal of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery has retracted 17 papers, with the common theme of ‘overlap’ — almost always a euphemism for plagiarism, whether self or otherwise.

Published between 1993 and 2006, the articles came from a group of authors at the department of otolaryngology at Ajou University School of Medicine in Suwon, South Korea. Their topics range from “The Effects of Intratympanic Steroid Injection for the Patients with Refractory Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss” to “Study for Reversibility of Experimental Cholesteatoma Using Mongolian Gerbil.”

The retraction notices all read basically the same way. Here’s the one for the gerbil paper: Continue reading Korean ENT journal retracts 17 papers, citing ‘overlap’

TKO for knee replacement paper, but notice raises more questions than it answers

The journal Orthopedics is retracting a paper by Chinese researchers who appear to have been a little to hasty to submit their manuscript.

Titled “Comparison of the mini-midvastus with the mini-medial parapatellar approach in primary TKA,” the October 2010 paper purported to describe a prospective, randomized study comparing two approaches to total knee arthroplasty, or knee replacement surgery. The authors, from First Affiliated Hospital of Suzhou University, stated that “all knees were implanted with the same posterior-stabilized prosthesis by the same surgeon,” a Dr. Tang.

Having claimed to have separated the effects of the surgery from those of the prosthetic — in this case, the Genesis II device from Smith & Nephew — the authors said that the study was able to demonstrate that “the early clinical results are similar between the mini-midvastus and mini-medial parapatellar approach. The mini-medial parapatellar approach is easier to initially apply and provides better visualization for TKA.”

Except that it didn’t.  Continue reading TKO for knee replacement paper, but notice raises more questions than it answers

Allergy journal clears studies linked to jailed U.K. researcher Erin

When the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine retracted four publications (two papers, two abstracts) by Edward Erin, who is now sitting in an English jail for having attempted to poison his mistress to induce an abortion, it appeared that the damage to the medical literature might be far worse. Erin’s name had appeared on many more publications, including five articles published in Clinical & Experimental Allergy (CEA) since 2002.

Prompted by an inquiry from Retraction Watch, CEA conducted an investigation into its Erin publications, reaching out to his co-authors. Today we received an e-mail from Andrew Wardlaw, editor of CEA, informing us of a letter that will appear in an upcoming issue of the journal: Continue reading Allergy journal clears studies linked to jailed U.K. researcher Erin

More on SPIROCOR noninvasive heart disease test: Second retraction (in fact the first) says little

Since we first wrote about the travails of Spirocor’s bedside, noninvasive test for coronary artery disease, we’ve been trying, without much success, to find out more information.

But as they say about every dog, our day has come.

As we initially reported, Ron Waksman, a prominent Washington, D.C. cardiologist and editor-in-chief of Cardiovascular and Revascularization Medicine, was first author of one of two papers about the Spirocor technology that were published in 2010. The other, by Shiyovich, et al, was retracted earlier this month by the American Journal of the Medical Sciences, which triggered our interest in this case.

At the time, we couldn’t find any evidence that Waksman’s article had been retracted, and Waksman has not responded to multiple requests for comment. Today we spoke with Kate Coons, the journal’s managing editor, who told us that the authors had sought a retraction for the article, “An innovative noninvasive respiratory stress test indicates significant coronary artery disease,” in December, and that it had posted one on its website on Jan. 6 of this year. It will be in print in an upcoming issue.

The notice is not available on Medline, but it can be found on ScienceDirect: Continue reading More on SPIROCOR noninvasive heart disease test: Second retraction (in fact the first) says little