The U.S. Office of Research Integrity is investigating work done at a Caltech lab after researchers there couldn’t replicate it, and retracted a paper based on the findings.
Here’s the notice, which ran this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS): Continue reading ORI investigating work from Caltech lab as PNAS paper is retracted
As Retraction Watch readers know, we cover Elsevier’s journals frequently, including a story just last week about their peer review system being hacked. And they’ve written about us, too. So we’re pleased to present a guest post by Elsevier’s Linda Lavelle, General Counsel-North America, about the publisher’s take on plagiarism and other unethical behavior — and what the company is doing to prevent it.
Protecting Good Science: Upholding Publishing Ethics
If a plagiarist plagiarizes from an author who herself has plagiarized, do we call it a wash and go for a beer? That scenario is precisely what Steven L. Shafer, MD, found himself facing recently. Dr. Shafer, editor-in-chief of Anesthesia & Analgesia, learned that authors of a 2008 case report in his publication had lifted two-and-a-half paragraphs of text from a 2004 paper published in the Canadian Journal of Anesthesia.
Wait. Stop. Does the preceding paragraph sound familiar? Chances are, no. But in fact, I lifted it, word for word, from a piece by Adam Marcus in Anesthesiology News, January 2011. (A similar post also ran here at Retraction Watch, with attribution.) Does this kind of cut-and-paste happen in research publishing today? Sadly, yes. According to Science (Vol. 324, May 22, 2009), an estimated 200,000 of 17 million articles in the Medline database may have been duplicates or plagiarized. One percent may seem like a relatively small incidence. But the sheer number is disturbing. Continue reading How is Elsevier promoting ethical publishing? A guest post
Last week, we broke the story of Elsevier’s peer review system being hacked. As we reported, that led to
faked peer reviews and retractions — although the submitting authors don’t seem to have been at fault. As of now, eleven papers by authors in China, India, Iran, and Turkey have been retracted from three journals.
After our post, Elsevier’s Tom Reller filled in some details in a post at Elsevier Connect: Continue reading Was Elsevier’s peer review system hacked to get more citations?
Sometimes, retraction notices offer tantalizing clues, but no real information. Take the case of a paper called “Florid osseous dysplasia,” which was published last year in Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology by a group at Mumbai’s Nair Hospital Dental College and retracted recently.
Here’s the notice, which is suggestive but doesn’t say much: Continue reading Dental papers retracted after investigations find “issue with respect to misconduct”
Last month, we brought you news that Pfizer had retracted a paper in the Journal of Clinical Oncology
purporting to show a benefit of their experimental drug for lung cancer figitumumab after discovering that its clinical lead on the project had done analyses improperly.
There’s been another retraction, of a related paper, in the British Journal of Cancer, “Pre-treatment levels of circulating free IGF-1 identify NSCLC patients who derive clinical benefit from figitumumab.” Here’s the notice: Continue reading Another retraction for Pfizer’s experimental cancer treatment figitumumab
Retraction Watch readers may recall the case of Silvia Bulfone-Paus, a researcher at Germany’s Research Center Borstel who was a frequent subject of posts in the early days of this blog. Bulfone-Paus has had to retract 13 papers amid investigations into allegations of image manipulation.
To briefly recap: In May 2010, several months after concerns had first been raised, Borstel let the DFG (German Research Foundation) know about the allegations, because they had funded the work. A November 2010 report from Borstel said that the allegations had merit, blaming two of Bulfone-Paus’s postdocs but criticizing how she supervised them. As the DFG notes in a summary of its findings on the case, posted late last week: Continue reading Funding agency sanctions Bulfone-Paus and former postdoc
A new paper has catalogued retractions over the past few decades in business and economics journals — and hasn’t found very many.
In “Retraction, Dishonesty and Plagiarism: Analysis of a Crucial Issue for Academic Publishing, and the Inadequate Responses from Leading Journals in Economics and Management Disciplines,” which just went online in the Journal of Applied Economics and Business Research (JAEBR), Solmaz Filiz Karabag and Christian Berggren identified 31 retractions in business journals dating back to 2005, and just six in economics journals, dating back to 2009.
The numbers in business journals are even lower when you consider that Continue reading Why aren’t there more retractions in business and economics journals?
For several months now, we’ve been reporting on variations on a theme: Authors submitting fake email addresses for potential peer reviewers, to ensure positive reviews. In August, for example, we broke the story of a Hyung-In Moon, who has now retracted 24 papers published by Informa because he managed to do his own peer review.
Now, Retraction Watch has learned that the Elsevier Editorial System (EES) was hacked sometime last month, leading to faked peer reviews and retractions — although the submitting authors don’t seem to have been at fault. As of now, eleven papers by authors in China, India, Iran, and Turkey have been retracted from three journals.
Here’s one of two identical notices that have just run in Optics & Laser Technology, for two unconnected papers: Continue reading Elsevier editorial system hacked, reviews faked, 11 retractions follow
A group of cardiology researchers formerly of the University of Cologne has retracted two papers, after investigations into allegations of misconduct led to an admission of guilt by one of the lab’s junior members.
Here’s the first retraction, for “Connexin 43 acts as a cytoprotective mediator of signal transduction by stimulating mitochondrial KATP channels in mouse cardiomyocytes,” published last week in the Journal of Clinical Investigation: Continue reading Two patch-clamping retractions in PNAS and the JCI after first author admits image manipulation
In April, we wrote about a group of cancer researchers from Tunisia:
The M.O. of the group…appears to be quite simple: Find a study that looks easy to “replicate,” change a few of the particulars and submit as if it were a piece of local, original work.
One of the papers we cited in that post for appearing to be heavily plagiarized has now been retracted, with a heavy penalty for the authors. Here’s the notice, from the Annals of Saudi Medicine: Continue reading Serial plagiarists earn lifetime publishing ban from Saudi journal