A recently released survey of Belgian scientists suggests that Flemish medical researchers admit to having made up or massaged data more often than their counterparts around their world.
The survey, by the Dutch science magazine Eos with the help of Joeri Tijdink, of VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam, and the Pascal Decroos Fund for Investigative Journalism, found that Continue reading One in twelve Belgian medical scientists admits having “made up and/or massaged data”: Survey
HeLa — the cell line that has apparently taken over any number of others commonly used in science, suggesting that many researchers may not have been studying what they thought they were studying — is back in the news. This weekend, it was the DNA sequence of the cells that’s made headlines, with a quiet unpublishing of data.
As Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks — Lacks’s name is where “HeLa” comes from, as they’re her cells — wrote in the New York Times Sunday, a group of researchers at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory published an analysis of the HeLa cells’ genome on March 11 in G3: Genes, Genomes, Genetics, a new journal from the Genetics Society of America.
That genome, of course, could be very useful in research, given how widely used HeLa cells are. But the problem was Continue reading Geneticists take HeLa sequence off-line after Lacks family notes they hadn’t given consent
It’s Diederik Stapel’s golden retraction: Number 50.
The lucky notice appears in Social Psychology: Continue reading Diederik Stapel retraction count hits 50
Brian Deer’s name will no doubt be familiar to many Retraction Watch readers. Deer, of course, is the award-winning investigative reporter known for his reporting on numerous medical issues, including Andrew Wakefield’s now-retracted research into autism and vaccines.
Deer is giving a talk next week at the UK’s “Evidence Live” conference,and has a proposal that he hopes will make it more difficult for dishonest researchers to hide their misdeeds — and make it easier for journals to retract fraudulent papers. He has expressed concern before that voluntary codes have no teeth. Deer is proposing an amendment to the ICMJE’s Uniform Requirements for the Submission of Manuscripts to Biomedical Journals:
Continue reading Brian Deer’s modest proposal for post-publication peer review
A six year-old review on bird flu that failed to credit some content from another six year-old review of bird flu is now stamped with an Expression of Concern.
Here’s the notice, from Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses: Continue reading Flu paper duplication earns Expression of Concern
Retraction Watch readers may recall the case of Don Poldermans, a prominent Dutch cardiology researcher who left a research position in late 2011 amid an investigation into his work. In a letter in the American Journal of Medicine titled “Scientific Fraud or a Rush to Judgement?” Poldermans — three of whose papers are subject to Expressions of Concern — tries to set the record straight, something he has tried to do before.
Poldermans is responding to an editorial by Vineet Chopra and Kim Eagle, “Perioperative Mischief: The Price of Academic Misconduct,” which Chopra and Eagle based on a November 2011 press release: Continue reading Cardiologist accused of misconduct strikes back in a journal
A paper about a high-profile human fossil has been mysteriously removed from the journal that published it just two weeks ago.
Here’s the notice for “The oldest human fossil in Europe dated to ca. 1.4 Ma at Orce (Spain),” originally published on March 5: Continue reading Toothless wonder? Paper on “oldest human fossil in Europe” temporarily removed from journal’s site
Andrew Gelman, a statistician at Columbia University and a friend of the blog, has corrected a 2008 paper in the blunt way you’d expect him to.
Here’s the notice in the Annals of Applied Statistics:
In the paper, “Should the Democrats move to the left on economic policy?” AOAS 2 (2), 536-549 (2008), by Andrew Gelman and Cexun Jeffrey Cai, because of a data coding error on one of the variables, all our analysis of social issues is incorrect. Thus, arguably, all of Section 3 is wrong until proven otherwise. We thank Yang Yang Hu for discovering this error and demonstrating its importance.
In a post called “Retraction watch” — hey now! — Gelman writes: Continue reading “[A]ll of Section 3 is wrong until proven otherwise”: Correction of paper on Democrats’ economic policy
Rao Adibhatla, a University of Wisconsin scientist who was found by the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) to have faked data in two papers, has had one of those studies retracted.
Here’s the notice for “CDP-choline significantly restores phosphatidylcholine levels by differentially affecting phospholipase A2 and CTP: phosphocholine cytidylyltransferase after stroke,” by Adibhatla and a number of colleagues in the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC): Continue reading U Wisconsin neuroscientist who faked images has first paper retracted
An immunologist found by a former employer to have committed misconduct in more than 20 papers has had another paper retracted.
Here’s the notice for “Refining siRNA in vivo transfection: Silencing SPHK1 reveals its key role in C5a-induced inflammation in vivo,” by Alirio Melendez and colleagues in The International Journal of Biochemistry & Cell Biology: Continue reading Retraction nine appears for Alirio Melendez