Category: authorship issues

2001 sepsis paper “deviates from the ethical standard of authorship,” says journal

Screen Shot 2016-02-11 at 1.50.33 PMWe don’t have a lot of information on a recent retraction of a 2001 paper published in a Japanese journal — just a brief and strongly worded note explaining that it follows “a strict, extensive, and judicious review.”

The paper, retracted 14 years after it was published, describes patients in Okinawa, Japan who developed severe symptoms following infection by bacteria belonging to the Aeromonas genus. One example:

The one patient was a 15-year-old high school girl student, who had been healthy in her school life, was admitted to the hospital with a sudden onset of left thigh muscle pain and swelling. She subsequently went into septic shock and died one day after admission. Pathological examination on autopsy revealed massive gas formation, skin bullas and ulcers, and extensive severe soft tissue damage throughout the body.

“Aeromonas species infection with severe clinical manifestation in Okinawa, Japan-association with gas gangrene” has been cited three times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. It was published in a Japanese journal, Rinsho Biseibutshu Jinsoku Shindan Kenkyukai Shi — which translates to the Journal of the Association for Rapid Method and Automation in Microbiology.

The retraction note suggests that there are major flaws:  Continue reading 2001 sepsis paper “deviates from the ethical standard of authorship,” says journal

Author dispute, “considerable overlap” retract chemistry study

Spectrochimica Acta Part A- Molecular and Biomolecular Spectroscopy

A chemistry journal has issued a retraction after “a thorough and time-consuming analysis” revealed two out of four authors did not agree to submitting an article published in May, which also contains “considerable overlap and redundancy” with another paper published a few weeks prior in a different journal.

Shortly after the paper appeared in Spectrochimica Acta Part A: Molecular and Biomolecular Spectroscopy, the journal was told “that parts of the manuscript were reused” from an article in the Journal of the Taiwan Institute of Chemical Engineers that was published online March 16. That led to the investigation, and the discovery of the additional authorship issues.

Here’s the full notice: Continue reading Author dispute, “considerable overlap” retract chemistry study

Should there be “data authors?” Q&A with NEJM editor Jeffrey Drazen

Jeffrey Drazen ©2011 Jon Chomitz Photography 3 Prescott street, Somerville, MA 02143 www.chomitz.com jon@chomitz.com 617.625.6789
Jeffrey Drazen ©2011 Jon Chomitz Photography

Would designating a set of authors as responsible for data production – separate from those who conduct the analysis – help boost the reliability of papers? That’s a question raised by the editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, Jeffrey Drazen. Along with many other editors of top medical journals, Drazen recently signed a proposal by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors to require authors of clinical trials to share anonymous patient data within six months of publication. He talked to us about another way to make trials more robust: Create “data authors.”

Retraction Watch: What has been the reaction so far to ICMJE’s data sharing proposal? Continue reading Should there be “data authors?” Q&A with NEJM editor Jeffrey Drazen

Authorship dispute fells membrane paper

no spine minimum. full size. Editor: Barbara Sydow JEM: Clay RTP: Cynthia Porath jpcbfk

A membrane paper has been retracted only two months after publication in the Journal of Physical Chemistry B because of an authorship dispute.

The paper, “Magnetic Interaction of Transition Ion Salts with Spin Labeled Lipid Membranes: Interplay of Anion-Specific Adsorption, Electrostatics, and Membrane Fluidity,” has not been cited, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. (It appears to be taken down entirely, but it looks like you can read its abstract here.)

Here’s the entire — very short — note:

Continue reading Authorship dispute fells membrane paper

Paper on the adhesiveness of a material doesn’t stick

1-s2.0-S0169433215X00213-cov150hApplied Surface Science has retracted an article that looks at the structure of thin tungsten-titanium coating, because it was submitted without all of the co-authors’ consent.

According to the introduction of the paper, “Structure adhesion and corrosion resistance study of tungsten bisulfide doped with titanium deposited by DC magnetron co-sputtering,” such thin films are “widely used as a surface treatment for optimizing base material properties.”

Here’s the retraction note in full, published in the September issue of the journal:

Continue reading Paper on the adhesiveness of a material doesn’t stick

Authors retract two papers for “severe conflicts of author sequences”

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A group of authors has earned two retractions for a pair of papers on which they had “severe conflicts of author sequences,” according to the retraction note.

All of the authors were involved in a recent spate of compromised peer review that hit Springer journals back in August. Among the 64 retracted papers this summer, one included all of the authors on the two recently retracted papers, including first author Yan-Zhi Chen. Besides authorship issues, the latest two retractions also contain a “striking similarity to other publications,” according to the retraction notices.

The notes for the two papers are the same, except for the title of the paper. (They are also paywalled, tsk tsk!)

Here’s what the notes say:

Continue reading Authors retract two papers for “severe conflicts of author sequences”

Data dispute forces journal to pull paper about rare bird on valuable land

coverThe authors of a paper about the density of an endangered bird on valuable Texas lands are disputing the journal’s decision to pull the paper after other scientists objected to some of its contents.

The paper, published online in August by the Journal of Field Ornithology, compared different models for estimating the number of golden-cheeked warblers that nest in Texas. According to the Austin American-Statesman, some of that land includes highly sought-after woodlands. Developers had used estimates from recent years, which suggested that the bird population was in relatively good health, to petition to open that land for real estate development. But the new paper concluded that those estimates were too high.

After some scientists who produced the more rosy estimates claimed that the some of their data had been included in the newest paper without permission, the editor in chief decided to retract it.

That was in November. There’s no retraction note for “Density influences accuracy of model-based estimates for a forest songbird.” We contacted the editor in chief, Gary Ritchison, to ask why. He told us,

Continue reading Data dispute forces journal to pull paper about rare bird on valuable land

Author added to paper after investigation at University of Helsinki

CoverIssueAn author has been added to a biochemistry paper following an investigation by the University of Helsinki.

Karen Sabatini, currently a biochemist at the University of San Diego, was erroneously left off the author list of a paper published in 2010 in Soft Matter. She apparently left Helsinki in 2010.

The circumstances may be unclear, but one thing we do know: authorship issues often take down papers entirely. Since this just warranted a correction, the mistake could have just been an oversight, rather than pointing to a larger issue.

Here’s the note for “Formation of lipid/peptide tubules by IAPP and temporin B on supported lipid membranes:”

Continue reading Author added to paper after investigation at University of Helsinki

“The peer review process was compromised”: Inflammation drug paper pulled

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A paper that screened for antibodies that target TNFα, a major source of inflammation, has been retraction after an investigation revealed the peer-review process may have been compromised.

We’ve seen the peer review process “compromised” in a handful of ways — from a mathematician who oversaw the process on several of his own papers, to some 250 papers subject to outright fake peer review. The note for this paper, published in Amino Acids, doesn’t go into details, so we can only wonder what happened in this particular case.

Here’s the note for “Structure‑based development and optimization of therapy antibody drugs against TNFα:”

Continue reading “The peer review process was compromised”: Inflammation drug paper pulled

Journal repels a paper on a magnetic material after authorship, funding issues

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A paper on the properties of a magnetic material is being retracted after including an author without his permission, and omitting a funding source.

According to the note, the work was done in Miao Yu‘s lab at Chongqing University in China; the authors then added Yu’s name to the paper without his authorization, and neglected to list a relevant funding source.

Here’s the retraction note for “Temperature-dependent dynamic mechanical properties of magnetorheological elastomers under magnetic field,” published in the Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials:

Continue reading Journal repels a paper on a magnetic material after authorship, funding issues