A lovely birthday gift from reader Leonid Schneider, who also contributes cartoons to Lab Times, where we have a column.
Bonus: The world’s first art critic.
Author: Ivan Oransky
Happy fourth anniversary, Retraction Watch
Yesterday was our fourth birthday. We published our first post, “Why write a blog about retractions?” on August 3, 2010, and the anniversary seems as good a time as any to review where we’ve been.
Here were some highlights of the past twelve months: Continue reading Happy fourth anniversary, Retraction Watch
Weekend reads: Dope-addicted doctors running drug trials; jailed for copyright violation?
Another busy week at Retraction Watch. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
- “Why are dope-addicted, disgraced doctors running our drug trials?” asks Peter Aldhous.
- Could a biology student in Colombia be jailed for violating copyright? Continue reading Weekend reads: Dope-addicted doctors running drug trials; jailed for copyright violation?
Another Nature stem cell paper is retracted
Another stem cell paper has been retracted from Nature, this one a highly cited 2008 study that had already been the subject of what the journal’s news section called a “furore” in 2010.
According to that 2010 news story:
The researchers behind the original work1, led by Thomas Skutella of the University of Tübingen, reported using cells from adult human testes to create pluripotent stem cells with similar properties to embryonic stem cells.
But a 2010 Brief Communication Arising called those findings into question. And now, the authors have retracted the paper. Here’s the notice for “Generation of pluripotent stem cells from adult human testis:” Continue reading Another Nature stem cell paper is retracted
MD Anderson postdoc faked results of Novartis anti-cancer compound study
A former postdoc at MD Anderson Cancer Center faked the results of a mouse study of a Novartis compound designed to fight brain tumors, according to the Office of Research Integrity (ORI).
Jun Fu “admitted to knowingly and intentionally falsifying Figure 8a” in “Novel HSP90 Inhibitor NVP-HSP990 Targets Cell-Cycle Regulators to Ablate Olig2-Positive Glioma Tumor–Initiating Cells,” a paper published in Cancer Research on May 15, 2013:
Continue reading MD Anderson postdoc faked results of Novartis anti-cancer compound study
UT-Southwestern cancer research group notches ninth retraction
A research team at the University of Texas-Southwestern that has retracted eight papers for image manipulation has retracted another, this one in Lung Cancer.
Here’s the notice for “Aberrant methylation of Reprimo in lung cancer,” published by Adi Gazdar’s group: Continue reading UT-Southwestern cancer research group notches ninth retraction
Authors retract paper “confirming” that narcolepsy is an autoimmune disease
A group of researchers at Stanford and elsewhere is retracting a 2013 paper that another scientist told Nature was “one of the biggest things to happen in the narcolepsy field for some time.”
The Science Translational Medicine paper caused a buzz because it claimed to show that narcolepsy was an autoimmune disease. Here’s the notice: Continue reading Authors retract paper “confirming” that narcolepsy is an autoimmune disease
Bitter rheumatology authorship dispute ends in retraction
A 2012 expression of concern prompted by an authorship dispute has been upgraded to a retraction.
As we reported in 2012, Revista Brasiliera de Reumatologia (aka the Brazilian Journal of Rheumatology) issued an expression of concern about “Anticitrullinated peptide antibodies and rheumatoid factor in Sudanese patients with Leishmania donovani infection” after
a claim from one of the authors, questioning the authorship of the corresponding author, and informed that the article was under submission to another journal.
The journal sought the advice of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), and continued its investigation. That investigation is apparently now complete, and this retraction notice is the result: Continue reading Bitter rheumatology authorship dispute ends in retraction
“Authors, please call us. Pretty please? OK, we’re going to retract your paper!”
The title of this post isn’t exactly how the one-sided conversation between the editors of Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment and a group of researchers went. But it seems likely it was pretty close.
Here’s an expression of concern for “A cross-sectional study on perception of stigma by Chinese schizophrenia patients:” Continue reading “Authors, please call us. Pretty please? OK, we’re going to retract your paper!”
Diabetes researcher Cory Toth up to seven retractions
A University of Calgary diabetes researcher, Cory Toth, who told us earlier this year that he would cease publishing in the scientific literature, has two more retractions, making seven.
Both appear in Neurobiology of Disease. Here’s the notice for “Differential impact of diabetes and hypertension in the brain: Adverse effects in white matter:”
Continue reading Diabetes researcher Cory Toth up to seven retractions