Authors retract two studies on high blood pressure and supplements after realizing they’d made a common error

A group of researchers from Iran, Italy and the UK have retracted two meta-analyses on supplements and high blood pressure after making what a statistics expert calls a common error.

Both papers were originally published in the Journal of Human Hypertension. Here’s the retraction notice for “Elevated blood pressure reduction after α-lipoic acid supplementation: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials:”

Continue reading Authors retract two studies on high blood pressure and supplements after realizing they’d made a common error

Weekend reads: Leading stem cell researcher’s work under scrutiny; faked drug trial data; troubling China practice snares publisher

Before we present this week’s Weekend Reads, a question: Do you enjoy our weekly roundup? If so, we could really use your help. Would you consider a tax-deductible donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance.

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

Continue reading Weekend reads: Leading stem cell researcher’s work under scrutiny; faked drug trial data; troubling China practice snares publisher

Publisher retracts nearly 50 papers at once

A year after retracting 29 papers in one fell swoop, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), a scientific society which is also one of the world’s largest scientific publishers, is retracting 49 articles from a journal and a conference because of problems in the way they were peer reviewed.

In a statement, IEEE said:

Continue reading Publisher retracts nearly 50 papers at once

This Giving Tuesday, please consider supporting Retraction Watch

We know there are a lot of causes that matter to you, but since you’re reading this, we may be one of them. So we’d like to ask for your support.

On this Giving Tuesday, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to The Center For Scientific Integrity, the 501(c)3 parent organization of Retraction Watch. Any amount helps. Your donation will help us shine a spotlight on scientific misconduct, and on the process — too often messy and slow — of correcting the scholarly record.

Here’s what your donations will continue to help make possible:

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Weekend reads: Disgraced surgeon earns prison sentence; politicians and plagiarism; parents who help their kids cheat

Before we present this week’s Weekend Reads, a question: Do you enjoy our weekly roundup? If so, we could really use your help. Would you consider a tax-deductible donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance.

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

Continue reading Weekend reads: Disgraced surgeon earns prison sentence; politicians and plagiarism; parents who help their kids cheat

‘We badly need to change processes’: How ‘slow, opaque and inconsistent’ journals’ responses to misconduct can be

Alison Avenell

Two researchers from Japan — Jun Iwamoto and the late Yoshihiro Sato — have slowly crept up our leaderboard of retractions to positions 3 and 4. They have that dubious distinction because a group of researchers from the University of Auckland the University of Aberdeen, who have spent years analyzing the work. As their efforts continue, those researchers have been analyzing how journals respond to allegations, and what effect Sato and Iwamoto’s misconduct has had on the clinical literature. We asked three of the common authors of two recently published papers to answer some questions.

Retraction Watch (RW): Tell us a bit about the case you analyzed in these two papers, and what you found.

Continue reading ‘We badly need to change processes’: How ‘slow, opaque and inconsistent’ journals’ responses to misconduct can be

“I cannot agree to this unfounded, unscientific, and rather Kafkian retraction.”

Franz Kafka

Mladen Pavicic, of the Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany, and the Ruder Boskovic Institute in Zagreb, Croatia has had a paper retracted from Nanoscale Research Letters.

He’s not happy about it. 

In a preprint posted to arXiv, “Response to “Retraction Note: Can Two-Way Direct Communication Protocols Be Considered Secure,” Pavicic writes:

Continue reading “I cannot agree to this unfounded, unscientific, and rather Kafkian retraction.”

Political science prof up to five retractions after she “carelessly uses parts of diverse sources”

Teresa Cierco

A professor of political science at the University of Porto in Portugal has had at least five papers retracted for plagiarism.

Or, as one journal put it, Teresa Cierco “carelessly uses parts of diverse sources.” 

Cierco’s areas of research include Kosovo, Macedonia, and Timor-Leste. The retractions, for papers published in 2013 and 2014, began in 2013, with three happening this year.

Cierco told Retraction Watch that she now realizes that she “did things wrong and tried to correct them.”

Continue reading Political science prof up to five retractions after she “carelessly uses parts of diverse sources”

Weekend reads: Double-dipping with industry funding; a bully is rehired; organized crime scholar charged with money laundering

Before we present this week’s Weekend Reads, a question: Do you enjoy our weekly roundup? If so, we could really use your help. Would you consider a tax-deductible donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance.

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

Continue reading Weekend reads: Double-dipping with industry funding; a bully is rehired; organized crime scholar charged with money laundering

NIH to lift Duke sanctions stemming from misconduct

Duke University

The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) plans to lift sanctions it placed on Duke University more than 1.5 years ago following concerns about how the school responded to recent cases of misconduct.

In a memo today to faculty and staff obtained by Retraction Watch, Lawrence Carin, Duke vice president for research wrote:

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