Ellie Kincaid

Exclusive: Cancer researcher sues MD Anderson over misconduct finding

A biochemist who worked as a postdoc at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston has sued the institution to dispute findings of research misconduct.

The researcher, Sonia Melo, now at the University of Porto in Portugal, alleges MD Anderson did not follow its own policies while conducting its investigation. Melo lost a prestigious grant in 2016 after one of her papers was retracted for containing duplicated images.

MD Anderson’s investigation concerned a paper published in Cancer Cell in 2014. On August 7 the journal marked it with a “temporary Expression of Concern” detailing duplicated and relabeled data found in the probe, which was completed in May 2024. The article has been cited 1,462 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science.

Frontiers to retract 122 articles, links thousands in other publishers’ journals to “unethical” network

The publisher Frontiers has begun retracting a batch of 122 articles across five journals after an investigation found a network of authors and editors engaged in “unethical actions” such as manipulating citations and reviewing papers without disclosing conflicts of interest.

The publisher’s research integrity team has identified more than 4,000 articles linked to the network in journals owned by seven other companies, according to a company statement. The team said it is willing to share details and the methodology of their investigation with other publishers upon request. The company is a member of the STM Hub, a platform publishers use to share such information.

After 15 years of controversy, Science retracts ‘arsenic life’ paper

*Science* has retracted a 2010 paper describing a strain of bacteria that purportedly substituted arsenic for phosphorus, an element present in all known life.
*Science*/AAAS

Fifteen years after publishing an explosive but long-criticized paper claiming to describe a microbe that could substitute arsenic for phosphate in its chemical makeup, Science is retracting the article, citing “expanded” criteria for retraction.

The authors stand by their findings and disagree with the retraction, and contend the decision doesn’t reflect best practices for publishers.

Many scientists, including David Sanders, a biologist at Purdue University in Lafayette, Ind. who has previously argued for the paper’s retraction in posts for Retraction Watch, believe the paper’s results were simply the result of contamination of the authors’ materials. He told us he was “glad” to see the retraction.

Microbiome company CEO who linked COVID vaccine to bacterial decline now has four retractions

A gastroenterologist and microbiome researcher who has promoted hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin as COVID treatments has lost a paper after a sleuth reported differences between the article and the registered protocol of the clinical trial it purported to describe.

The retracted article, on detecting SARS-CoV-2 in fecal samples, was published in Gut Pathogens in January 2021. It marks the fourth retraction for study coauthor Sabine Hazan.

Hazan is founder and CEO of ProgenaBiome, a laboratory in Ventura, Calif., advertising clinical trials exploring the role of the gut microbiome in conditions including autism and Alzheimer’s disease, as well as COVID. She is also CEO of Ventura Clinical Trials, which lists dozens of pharmaceutical and biotech companies among its clients.

Remembering Mario Biagioli, who articulated how scholarly metrics lead to fraud

Mario Biagioli, a distinguished professor of law and communication at the University of California, Los Angeles — and a pioneering thinker about how academic reward systems incentivize misconduct — passed away in May after a long illness. He was 69.

Among other intellectual interests, Biagioli wrote frequently about the (presumably) unintended consequences of using metrics such as citations to measure the quality and impact of published papers, and thereby the prestige of their authors and institutions.

“It is no longer enough for scientists to publish their work. The work must be seen to have an influential shelf life,” Biagioli wrote in Nature in 2016. “This drive for impact places the academic paper at the centre of a web of metrics — typically, where it is published and how many times it is cited — and a good score on these metrics becomes a goal that scientists and publishers are willing to cheat for.”

Editors won’t retract talc and cancer article J&J says is false in court

A journal will not retract a paper linking use of talc-based baby powder to cancer, despite legal pressure from the pharmaceutical giant that made the product.

A lawyer representing a unit of Johnson & Johnson in May asked editors of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine to retract a paper on cases of mesothelioma associated with cosmetic talc, following the court-ordered release of the identities of the people described in the article.

The lawyer alleged many of the patients had other exposures to asbestos than cosmetic talc, rendering the article’s fundamental claims “false.”

Paper on “wokeness” and mental health retracted for political reasons, authors say

The authors of an article linking scores on a “wokeness” scale and mental health issues are blaming political bias for the retraction of their paper in March following post-publication peer review.

The article, “Do Conservatives Really Have an Advantage in Mental Health? An Examination of Measurement Invariance,” appeared in the Scandinavian Journal of Psychology last August. It has been cited twice, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science, one being the retraction notice.

“Following publication of this article, concerns were raised by third parties about the conclusions drawn by the authors based on the data provided,” according to the March 26 notice. After investigating, the publisher and the journal “concluded that the article contains major errors involving methods, theory, and normatively biased language,” which “bring into doubt the conclusions drawn by the authors,” the notice stated. The authors disagreed with the decision.

In a blog post, one author, Emil Kirkegaard, called the journal’s action “my first politically motivated retraction.” Kirkegaard’s studies and writings are provocative, on topics including race and IQ.

‘More of the same’: Journals, trade website refuse to correct critiques of book on Alzheimer’s fraud

Amyloid-beta plaques (brown) and tau protein tangles (blue). Credit: National Institute on Aging/NIH

Investigative journalist Charles Piller’s latest book, Doctored: Fraud, Arrogance, and Tragedy in the Quest to Cure Alzheimer’s, came out in February. It details the work of Matthew Schrag, a neurologist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., and other sleuths who uncovered evidence of problems in hundreds of research papers about the neurologic condition.

Most reviews and coverage have been positive, Piller said. But some Alzheimer’s researchers have criticized the book in reviews published in JAMA, The Lancet Neurology, and the website Alzforum, which hosts news and commentary on Alzheimer’s research.

Piller and Schrag say they respect that others are entitled to their opinions, but expressed concern that some of these reviews contain inaccuracies that downplay their findings. And the journals and Alzforum have refused to publish responses they submitted or make corrections they requested.

Sodom comet paper to be retracted two years after editor’s note acknowledging concerns

The authors’ reconstruction of what the blast’s impact area may have been. *Source*

Scientific Reports has retracted a controversial paper claiming to present evidence an ancient city in the Middle East was destroyed by an exploding celestial body – an event the authors suggested could have inspired the Biblical account of Sodom and Gomorrah.

The decision comes two years after Scientific Reports, a Springer Nature title, published an editor’s note informing readers the journal was looking into concerns about the data and conclusions in the work.

The then-pending retraction was the subject of an April 10 blog post by one of the paper’s authors, George Howard, who called the journal’s decision to remove the article “a profoundly disappointing and frankly disgusting turn of events.”

Medical societies call for BMJ to retract ‘misleading and irresponsible’ guideline

*The BMJ’s* clinical practice guideline for chronic spine pain

Thirty-four medical professional societies have called for The BMJ to retract a recently published guideline recommending against the use of interventional procedures, such as steroid or anaesthetic injections, to treat chronic back pain.

The journal published the guideline in February as part of its Rapid Recommendations program alongside a meta-analysis and systematic review of published research on the procedures, which the guideline panel used to inform its recommendations. The publications received international news coverage and enough chatter on social media platforms such as X and Bluesky to place them in the top 5 percent of all articles scored by Altmetric, a data company that tracks digital mentions of research.

The societies, led by the International Pain and Spine Intervention Society, represent clinicians who prescribe or perform the interventional spine procedures the guideline recommends against. The groups “have serious concerns about the methodology and conclusions drawn in these publications and their potential impact on patient care,” they wrote in a statement dated March 18, and summarized in a rapid response on the BMJ’s website. The statement has since been published in The Spine Journal and Interventional Pain Medicine.

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