Ivan Oransky

Which countries have the most retractions, for which reasons?

One of the questions we often get — but are careful to answer with some version of “we don’t know because we don’t have a denominator” — is how retraction rates vary by scientific field and country. We’ve noticed that the reasons for retraction seem to vary among countries, but didn’t really have the data. A new paper in the Journal of the Medical Library Association by Kathleen Amos takes a good step toward figuring the country part out.

Amos looked at PubMed-indexed retractions from 2008 to 2012. Here’s what she found: Continue reading Which countries have the most retractions, for which reasons?

Paper claiming a way to “print any drug instantly” gets unprinted

A recent paper proposing a way to “print any drug instantly” has been withdrawn by the author, following bewildered reactions from the blogosphere.

The paper made the rounds at various chemistry-focused blogs last month. Derek Lowe of In The Pipeline picked up on it too, calling the article

one of the oddest papers to appear in Drug Discovery Today, which is saying something.

Apparently, the author — or someone claiming to be the author, using the initials YC — wasn’t crazy about the criticism. He left this comment on In The Pipeline and elsewhere: Continue reading Paper claiming a way to “print any drug instantly” gets unprinted

A retraction involving Sarah Palin

Former U.S. vice presidential candidate and Alaska governor Sarah Palin is no stranger to retractions, or perhaps “walk backs,” as politicians usually call them. There was her apology for comments about Pope Francis, a clarification about comments thought to be directed at Rush Limbaugh, and a walk back on her behalf from her running mate, Sen. John McCain.

Now, a paper in the academic literature that refers to her has been retracted. Here’s the notice from Political Research Quarterly: Continue reading A retraction involving Sarah Palin

Unusual: Journal withdraws Expression of Concern about child development paper

In December, the journal Child Development posted an Expression of Concern about a study because of “possible inaccuracies in its data.” A few months later, however, that changed. Here’s what now appears where the Expression of Concern did: Continue reading Unusual: Journal withdraws Expression of Concern about child development paper

fabricated the quantitative and qualitative data for RNA and DNA purportedly extracted from 900 formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded (FFPE) colorectal tissue samples presented in Table 1 of the CEBP paper and falsely reported successful methodology to simultaneously recover nucleic acids from FFPE tissue specimens, when neither the extractions nor analyses of the FFPE samples were done. Thus, the main conclusions of the CEBP paper are based on fabricated data and are false.

Sheehy agreed to ask that one of his papers be retracted. The retraction notice has appeared: Continue reading Retraction appears for former federal contractor who faked data

New Frontiers: Marc Hauser back publishing in scientific literature

Marc Hauser, the psychology researcher who resigned from Harvard and was found by the Office of Research Integrity to have committed misconduct, has published two new papers.