Ivan Oransky

Weekend reads: “Banished” data used in a paper; cancer group’s database draws ethical scrutiny; company employees banned as peer reviewers

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The week at Retraction Watch featured a retraction demand from CrossFit; a “case of good science” in a Nature retraction; and another Forensics Friday, in which you can test your sleuthing skills. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

Forensics Friday: What mistake(s) did the author make in this figure?

Ever wanted to hone your skills as a scientific sleuth? Now’s your chance.

Thanks to the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB), which is committed to educating authors on best practices in publishing, figure preparation, and reproducibility, we’re presenting the fourth in a series, Forensics Friday.

Take a look at the image below, and then take our poll. After that, click on the link below to find out the right answer.

“This is a case of good science:” Nature republishes retracted glacier paper

Nature has republished a paper on glacier melt that was retracted more than a year ago after the author became aware that he had made an error that underestimated such melt.

The paper, originally titled “Asia’s glaciers are a regionally important buffer against drought,” was subjected to an expression of concern in 2017 after two researchers noticed that the author, Hamish Pritchard, of the British Antarctic Survey, had mistaken annual figures for water loss for decade-long water loss figures. It was retracted in February 2018, and is now republished as “Asia’s shrinking glaciers protect large populations from drought stress.”

Hester Jiskoot, who had reviewed the paper for us for previous posts, and is now chief editor of the International Glaciological Society’s journals, told Retraction Watch this week that the episode

CrossFit demands retraction of paper claiming their participants are more likely to be injured

Saying that a paper has “fatal and disqualifying errors,” CrossFit is demanding the retraction of a recently published article that claimed those participating in CrossFit “are more likely to be injured and to seek medical treatment compared with participants in traditional weightlifting.”

The paper, “Likelihood of Injury and Medical Care Between CrossFit and Traditional Weightlifting Participants,” was published on May 7 in the Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine.

In a May 17 letter to the journal’s editor and the paper’s corresponding author, CrossFit general counsel Marshall Brenner said the article

Weekend reads: Pharmacy dean’s book review retracted; scientists out at Emory after questions about links to China; MIT prof faces allegations about misplaced credit

The week at Retraction Watch featured more troubles at Duke; a misconduct finding at Boston University; and a journal that tells authors 19% plagiarism is just fine. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

Forensics Friday: Just how many bands are duplicated in this image?

Ever wanted to hone your skills as a scientific sleuth? Now’s your chance.

Take a look at the image below, and then take our poll. After that, click on the link below to find out the right answer.

Former BU prof falsified images, agrees to 5-year funding ban

A former researcher at Boston University (BU) committed research misconduct, according to the U.S. Office of Research Integrity (ORI).

William W. Cruikshank, formerly of BU’s Pulmonary Center,
“engaged in research misconduct by knowingly, intentionally, and/or recklessly falsifying and/or fabricating data” in a paper retracted in 2014, in an earlier version of that paper, in a seminar presentation, and in two grant applications submitted to the National Cancer Institute, the ORI reports.

Cruikshank did so by “copying blot band images from unrelated sources, manipulating to disguise their origin, and combining multiple images to generate new figures to falsely represent results using sixty-four (64) such band images” in 16 figures and related text.

More troubles at Duke: NIH suspended grants because of concerns over patient safety

Last year, amid concerns for patient safety, the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) suspended seven grants to Duke University following “allegations of research misconduct…and…potential issues concerning clinical research irregularities,” we now know thanks to a letter from NIH to Duke.

A university requested retractions of eight papers. It took journals a year to yank four of them.

On March 30, 2018, The Ohio State University (OSU) released a 75-page report concluding that Ching-Shih Chen, a cancer researcher, had deviated “from the accepted practices of image handling and figure generation and intentionally falsifying data.” The report recommended the retraction of eight papers.

By the end of August of 2018, Chen had had four papers retracted — one in Cancer Research, two in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, and one in PLoS ONE.

But it wasn’t until more than a year after the report was released that the other four papers — two from Carcinogenesis, one from Clinical Cancer Research, and one from Molecular Cellular Therapeutics — were retracted, all between April 1 and May 1 of this year.

What took so long? Your guess is as good as ours; none of the editors of those journals responded to our requests for comment.

Weekend reads: Fraud in generic drugs; a university stonewalls after a data breach involving HIV; data behind fertility app retracted

The week at Retraction Watch featured the withdrawal of a paper linking Jon Stewart to Trump’s election win; the retraction of a study of vitamin D and autism; and another edition of Forensics Friday, in which you can test your sleuthing skills. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

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