Sometimes, an Expression of Concern says a heck of a lot without — as befits the genre — coming to a particular conclusion. Take this (paywalled)* example describing a paper from a group at Huazhong Science and Technology University, Wuhan, China: Continue reading Expression of Concern reveals journal editors bending over backward to give authors benefit of the doubt
Author: Ivan Oransky
Journal and authors apologize “unreservedly” for distress caused to deceased child’s family by case report
Neuroskeptic featured an interesting situation over the weekend, involving a case report published in an anesthesiology journal.
The case report in Anaesthesia and Intensive Care — about a six-year-old boy with a rare neurological condition who died following administration of anesthesia — caused the boy’s parents great distress when it appeared in November.
Here’s the original case report, which requires free registration to read. It ends with this: Continue reading Journal and authors apologize “unreservedly” for distress caused to deceased child’s family by case report
Former Hopkins and Pitt cancer researcher notches sixth retraction
Robert Getzenberg, a former researcher at Hopkins and Pitt, has retracted a sixth paper, this one in Cancer Research.
Here’s the notice for “Mechanistic Analysis of the Role of BLCA-4 in Bladder Cancer Pathobiology:” Continue reading Former Hopkins and Pitt cancer researcher notches sixth retraction
Should all correction notices be open access?
Chemistry blogger See Arr Oh was a bit irritated one day last week.
He’d found a correction in Organometallics, an American Chemical Society (ACS) journal, and the ACS wanted $35 to read it: Continue reading Should all correction notices be open access?
Citation manipulation: Journal retracts paper because author boosted references to a journal he edits
A group of researchers have lost a paper in a computer science journal because they were apparently using its references to help the impact factor of a different journal that one of them edits.
Here’s the notice for “Impacts of sensor node distributions on coverage in sensor networks,” a paper first published in 2011 and cited four times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge: Continue reading Citation manipulation: Journal retracts paper because author boosted references to a journal he edits
DMCA notice forces removal of post critical of author who threatened to sue Retraction Watch
A blog post at another site that picked up on our coverage of Benjamin Jacob Hayempour, the researcher who has two retractions and has threatened to sue us, has been removed following a Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notice.
As Andrew Oh-Willkie, the blogger, writes in an account of the incident: Continue reading DMCA notice forces removal of post critical of author who threatened to sue Retraction Watch
Weekend reads: One researcher resents “cyberbullying” while another wishes peer reviewers would spank him
Another busy week at Retraction Watch. Here’s what was going on around the web in scientific publishing and related issues:
- “The part of our paper that I [Conley] regret is our crazy biological interpretation. I don’t know what I was thinking or why reviewers didn’t spank me on that…” A wonderfully honest quote from a researcher who studies political attitudes. Continue reading Weekend reads: One researcher resents “cyberbullying” while another wishes peer reviewers would spank him
Biotech company retracts Parkinson’s treatment study after “possible deviation from protocol”
Living Cell Technologies (LCT), a biotech company headquartered in Australia, has retracted a 2011 paper purporting to show that their product reversed Parkinson’s symptoms in rats after “being unable to reconfirm their reported results and a possible deviation from the protocol.”
LCT is developing NTCELL, which, according to their site: Continue reading Biotech company retracts Parkinson’s treatment study after “possible deviation from protocol”
Science hasn’t retracted paper that university, NSF investigators wanted withdrawn
On Saturday, we highlighted a great two-part series by Joseph Neff of the News & Observer diving into the story of “Stefan Franzen, a chemistry professor at North Carolina State University who has been trying unsuccessfully to correct the scientific record.” Today, that series became a three-part series, with a new story revealing that an investigation by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) had found “reckless” falsification in the work in question.
One of the key papers in the controversy was published by Lina A. Gugliotti, Daniel L. Feldheim, and Bruce E. Eaton in Science in 2004 and cited 125 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. (Eaton is now at the University of Colorado at Boulder.) In 2011, Nature reported on the situation: Continue reading Science hasn’t retracted paper that university, NSF investigators wanted withdrawn
Heads up: “Borrowing” your student’s work will earn you a partial retraction — and a five-year publishing ban
We have a curious case for the “avoiding the p word” files from the Journal of East Asia & International Law.
The paper in question, “Border Enforcement of Plant Variety Rights: A Comparison between Japan and Taiwan,” was written by Shun-liang Hsu and appeared in the Spring 2012 issue of the journal. Here are the first two pages.
The notice is quite detailed. It begins with the allegations against Hsu: Continue reading Heads up: “Borrowing” your student’s work will earn you a partial retraction — and a five-year publishing ban