Author: Ivan Oransky

Paper with “missing or placed wrongly” controls retracted because there’s “no editorial mechanism to review the errors”

jgvTwo researchers from Singapore are retracting a paper that included errors in three figures because there’s apparently no way to fix the mistakes and have the new work reviewed.

Here’s the notice for “Host-dependent effects of the 3′ untranslated region of turnip crinkle virus RNA on accumulation in Hibiscus and Arabidopsis,” by Weimin Li and Sek-Man Wong of National University of Singapore and Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory: Continue reading Paper with “missing or placed wrongly” controls retracted because there’s “no editorial mechanism to review the errors”

Jesús Lemus notches his eighth retraction

animal conservationThe carcasses are piling up.

Jesús A. Lemus now has eight retractions. Here’s the notice for the most recent: Continue reading Jesús Lemus notches his eighth retraction

Another win for transparency: JBC takes a step forward, adding details to some retraction notices

jbc 3115Retraction Watch readers may recall that we have been frequent critics of the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC) — published by the American Society for Biochemistry & Molecular Biology (ASBMB) — for their opaque retraction notices. Such notices often read simply “This article has been withdrawn by the authors.”

But we are — despite what some might say is evidence to the contrary — eternal optimists, so when the ASBMB announced they were hiring a manager of publication ethics late last year, we cheered. (Patricia Valdez, a former NIH staff scientist, has since filled that position.) And today, we have another reason to say “Hurrah!”: JBC retraction notices will now include “additional details provided by official [Office of Research Integrity] ORI or institutional reports,” the journal tells us.

Here, for example, are five retractions in the March 1, 2013, issue by former University of Kentucky scientist Eric J. Smart, whom the ORI found to have faked dozens of images: Continue reading Another win for transparency: JBC takes a step forward, adding details to some retraction notices

More HeLa problems: For decades, a widely used bladder cancer line hasn’t been what scientists thought

jurolAbout a year ago, we wrote about the retraction of a paper in Oral Oncology that highlighted a big issue in oncology research: Widespread contamination of cancer cell lines by other lines, making findings difficult to interpret.

One of the common contaminants is HeLa cells. HeLa, of course, stands for Henrietta Lacks, the subject of Rebecca Skloot’s bestseller The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. As we noted last year, Continue reading More HeLa problems: For decades, a widely used bladder cancer line hasn’t been what scientists thought

How much self-plagiarism, aka duplication, is too much?

copeDuplication is a frequent reason for the retractions we cover. Such duplication retractions are so common that we don’t get to most of them. While many have argued that duplication pollutes the literature, and can bias meta-analyses when the same study ends up being counted more than once, others say the need to come up with new ways to say the same thing is a waste of time. (That doesn’t explain why some scientists don’t just put their old words in quotes and cite them, but we digress.)

Appropriately, the Committee on Publication Ethics is taking up the issue at their regular forum tomorrow, using new guidelines produced by BioMedCentral as a starting point. Here’s an excerpt: Continue reading How much self-plagiarism, aka duplication, is too much?

Study plagiarizes so many other papers, retraction notice can’t list them all

j controlled releaseIn a new retraction notice, the Journal of Controlled Release is living up to its name.

The editor-in-chief has retracted a study that plagiarized “a large number” of papers, but only three are listed in the notice. Here’s the notice for “In situ-forming hydrogels for sustained ophthalmic drug delivery,” by Basavaraj K. Nanjawade, F.V. Manvi, and A.S. Manjappa, three researchers at India’s KLES’s College of Pharmacy, JN Medical College Campus, Karnataka: Continue reading Study plagiarizes so many other papers, retraction notice can’t list them all

Oh, the irony: Business ethics journal paper retracted for plagiarism

jabeIs this the new business ethics?

In January, we reported on a paper retracted from the Journal of Business Ethics for duplication. That earned the author a five-year publishing ban. This week, we learned of a case of plagiarism in another journal in the field, the Journal of Academic and Business Ethics. Here’s an email editor Russell Baker — no, not that Russell Baker — sent to his contact list on Wednesday: Continue reading Oh, the irony: Business ethics journal paper retracted for plagiarism

“What I find offensive is not that they plagiarized us, it’s that they did it so badly”

studies sociology scienceRetraction Watch readers may be familiar with the work of Brian Nosek, a University of Virginia psychologist who has taken a tough stance about many of the problems in his field and coordinates the Reproducibility Project. So it must have seemed quite ironic for Nosek and his co-authors to learn today that one of their papers had been outrageously — and badly — plagiarized.

Here’s the abstract of the work by Nosek, Jesse Graham, and others, which hasn’t been published in a journal yet but is posted at Nosek’s website: Continue reading “What I find offensive is not that they plagiarized us, it’s that they did it so badly”

Copy editor, stat! PNAS spells its editor-in-chief’s name wrong — on a piece he co-authored

pnas 3 5 13With apologies in advance to the good folks at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) for making a joke about something that could very well happen to any of us, we note the following correction: Continue reading Copy editor, stat! PNAS spells its editor-in-chief’s name wrong — on a piece he co-authored

IRB issues force retraction of ulcer bug bacteria paper

jpgnA group of Turkish researchers has had a paper retracted on how to treat the bacterium that cause ulcers after the journal’s editors found “issues related to the institutional review board approval” of the project.

Here’s the retraction notice from the Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition: Continue reading IRB issues force retraction of ulcer bug bacteria paper