Author: Andrew P. Han

Article defending colonialism draws rebuke, journal defends choice to publish

Facing a volley of criticism for publishing an essay that called for a return to colonialism, a journal editor has defended his decision to print the article.

“The Case for Colonialism,” published Sept. 8 in Third World Quarterly (TWQ), was written by Bruce Gilley, a professor of political science at Portland State University. For an idea of what the piece was about, here’s the beginning of the abstract:

For the last 100 years, Western colonialism has had a bad name. It is high time to question this orthodoxy. Western colonialism was, as a general rule, both objectively beneficial and subjectively legitimate in most of the places where it was found, using realistic measures of those concepts.

Since the essay came out, scholars have criticized both the article itself and the journal’s decision to publish it. Several critics have called for retraction. [Update: 15 members of the editorial board have resigned in response.]

One group of critics wrote that they objected to the essay because:

Continue reading Article defending colonialism draws rebuke, journal defends choice to publish

Project to “fact check” genetic studies leads to three more retractions. And it’s just getting started.

Jennifer Byrne

A project to identify studies doomed by problematic reagents has triggered three more retractions, bringing the total to five.

Jennifer Byrne, a scientist at the University of Sydney, who developed the the idea of double-checking the nucleic acid sequences of research materials — thereby ensuring studies were testing the gene in question — told Retraction Watch that all three retractions came after she started emailing journals in January  to alert them to the problems: Continue reading Project to “fact check” genetic studies leads to three more retractions. And it’s just getting started.

Fertility docs said their study didn’t need ethics review. An investigation said they were wrong.

Arcispedale Santa Maria Nuova-IRCCS. Credit: IRCCS-ASMN

A journal is retracting a paper on the relative merits of one fertility procedure compared to another because the study never received ethical review or approval.

In the paper, “Intracytoplasmic morphologically selected sperm injection versus conventional intracytoplasmic sperm injection: a randomized controlled trial,” originally published Aug. 27, 2015 in Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology, the authors wrote: Continue reading Fertility docs said their study didn’t need ethics review. An investigation said they were wrong.

Carlo Croce, Ohio State researcher facing misconduct allegations, suing New York Times for defamation

Carlo Croce

Carlo Croce, a cancer researcher at The Ohio State University who has faced numerous allegations of research misconduct, has filed a lawsuit against the New York Times, claiming the newspaper defamed him in a March 8 story.

Croce filed the civil suit May 10, in the US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, naming as co-defendants Times reporters James Glanz and Agustin Armendariz, publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., and executive editor Dean Baquet. According to court documents, he’s seeking damages in excess of $75,000. The Times lawsuit was first reported by Courthouse News in May, but it’s actually the second defamation suit Croce filed that we know of.

In April, we’ve recently learned, Croce filed a separate defamation lawsuit against David Sanders, a professor at Purdue University and a key source for the Times story. Croce is seeking damages from Sanders in excess of $75,000.

Croce’s lawyer, Thomas Hill, of Columbus, Ohio firm Kegler Brown Hill + Ritter, told Retraction Watch his client was fighting a “David and Goliath battle” against the Times: Continue reading Carlo Croce, Ohio State researcher facing misconduct allegations, suing New York Times for defamation

UCSF, VA investigations find “clear evidence” of misconduct in cancer papers

Earlier this year, the University of California, San Francisco and the San Francisco Veterans Administration Medical Center teamed up to write a letter.

Addressed to the editorial office at the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR), the letter, parts of which have been published in a retraction notice, contained information concerning two papers on genetic risk factors for a type of kidney cancer and a type of uterine cancer, respectively, published in different AACR journals over a decade ago by researchers affiliated with the institutions.

The papers had been at the center of research misconduct investigations at both UCSF and the VA and the investigations came to the conclusion that both papers contained:

fabrication or falsification of data that constitutes Research Misconduct.

Though one of the papers has been retracted, it’s unclear what will happen to the other. [Note: See update at the bottom of the post.] Continue reading UCSF, VA investigations find “clear evidence” of misconduct in cancer papers

Data fabrication by ex-Harvard researcher takes down paper on Huntington’s disease

A researcher at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital is retracting a paper due to “inappropriate manipulation and fabrication of data” by the first author.

According to the retraction notice, published Aug. 22, corresponding author Marian DiFiglia is retracting the paper because the alleged misconduct by the first author, Antonio Valencia:

led to an incorrect conclusion in the paper that NADPH activity is elevated in Huntington’s disease (HD). Some original data were missing and efforts to replicate findings using the reported method or an alternative approach were unsuccessful. An institutional faculty panel supports the decision and the reasons for the retraction.

The notice added that the alleged data manipulation and fabrication affected bar graphs in two of the paper’s figures.

Terri Ogan, a spokesperson for Mass General, told Retraction Watch that Valencia no longer works at the institution, but declined to say whether there has been an investigation into the alleged misconduct: Continue reading Data fabrication by ex-Harvard researcher takes down paper on Huntington’s disease

“Scientifically misleading errors” prompt authors to withdraw paper

A group of authors have withdrawn a paper after revealing a litany of issues to the journal that published it. Among those issues were “scientifically misleading errors,” “insufficient” validation, and a disagreement between the researchers on whether it should have been published at all.

“Optimal DNA structure of reverse-hairpin beacons for label-free and positive surface enhanced Raman scattering assays,” originally published in June in Optical Materials Express (OMEx), was retracted Aug. 7. The paper purported to describe a detection method for RNA associated with influenza virus. It has not yet been cited, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science.

Here’s the full list of issues cited in the retraction notice: Continue reading “Scientifically misleading errors” prompt authors to withdraw paper

PNAS retracts paper linked to ex-Ohio State researcher who had chemistry PhD revoked

Researchers from The Ohio State University and The Scripps Research Institute are retracting a 2013 paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences after they uncovered data irregularities.

The retraction notice for “Somatic hypermutation maintains antibody thermodynamic stability during affinity maturation,” will appear online on Sept. 5. The paper purported to find clues about what makes antibodies stable at different temperatures. In a press release issued at the time of publication, corresponding author Thomas Magliery, of The Ohio State University, said the paper might help pharmaceutical companies make better antibody-based drugs. It has been cited 36 times, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science.

At some point — we’re not exactly sure when — the authors discovered that the antibody stability data was suspect. According to the notice: Continue reading PNAS retracts paper linked to ex-Ohio State researcher who had chemistry PhD revoked

Author cops to “randomly” choosing data for figures in paper, colleagues say

On April 17th, Mathieu Bollen, a researcher at KU Leuven in Belgium, received a notice from PubPeer: A paper he had published in 2013 appeared to have data duplications.

The article, “Maternal Embryonic Leucine Zipper Kinase (MELK) Reduces Replication Stress in Glioblastoma Cells,” published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, offered an explanation for why elevated levels of the MELK protein are associated with growth of a particular kind of brain tumor, glioblastoma. Several clinical trials are investigating MELK inhibitors as cancer treatments.

Bollen, the paper’s corresponding author, told Retraction Watch that one instance of image duplication, the inclusion of a gel-band from an unrelated experiment to represent a control, was “worrisome” but easily explainable:

Continue reading Author cops to “randomly” choosing data for figures in paper, colleagues say

Publisher flags paper on same-sex parenting after neo-Nazi group cites it

A publisher has issued an expression of concern (EoC) about a study that claimed children with same-sex parents were at greater risk of depression and abuse, after posters using statistics from the paper to support a homophobic message appeared in Australia and the US.

On Aug. 21, several news websites reported that these posters were appearing in Melbourne, Australia, citing claims from a 2016 paper published in Depression Research and Treatment, which said that children with same-sex parents are more at risk for depression, abuse, and obesity than children with opposite-sex parents. The poster had also appeared previously in Minneapolis and has been traced to a neo-Nazi group, as reported by HuffPost Australia. Australia is preparing for a national, non-binding, mail-in vote on whether to provide marriage equality for same-sex couples.

The EoC mechanism, which was chosen by the journal’s publisher, Hindawi, is an unusual choice here. The paper’s author, D. Paul Sullins, a sociology professor at The Catholic University of America and the paper’s author, told Retraction Watch that Hindawi contacted him Aug. 21 about the decision. Initially, he told us he didn’t have any “particular objection to it,” but later told us he changed his mind after he read more about COPE’s guidelines for EoCs: Continue reading Publisher flags paper on same-sex parenting after neo-Nazi group cites it