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Chronic fatigue syndrome-XMRV researcher scheduled to head to court today, alleging conspiracy

Judy Mikovits
Judy Mikovits

Chronic fatigue syndrome researcher Judy Mikovits was scheduled to head is heading to court today, where a California judge will would decide whether or not to dismiss her lawsuit against fourteen people and two Nevada corporations.

(Note: This story has been updated. See below.)

Among the defendants: the Whittemore Peterson Institute  in Reno, Nevada where Mikovits used to work; the institute’s cofounders, Annette and Harvey Whittemore; a colleague with whom she shares a retracted Science paper; and several members of California and Nevada law enforcement.

The complaint does not check the box next to “Money Demanded in Complaint”, but also lists $750,000 in the associated field:

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In 2006, Mikovits began working for the Whittmores at the WPI; her job was to search for a biological cause of chronic fatigue, a vexing, mysterious disease afflicting their daughter. Part of her research focused on a potential link between chronic fatigue syndrome and a virus known as XMRV. But after others — and Mikovits herself — couldn’t replicate results published in Science and the paper was retracted, she was fired from her position in 2011. Mikovits alleges that Continue reading Chronic fatigue syndrome-XMRV researcher scheduled to head to court today, alleging conspiracy

Heart researcher who faked patient data gets 4th retraction

XLargeThumb.00004872-201512000-00000.CVA heart researcher who fabricated patient records for her studies on the blood pressure medication ramipril has earned her fourth retraction, and more are apparently on the way.

For readers who are new to this case: Things first unraveled for Anna Ahimastos when a subanalysis of a JAMA clinical trial revealed “anomalies,” triggering an investigation. After Ahimastos admitted to fabricating patient data, that JAMA paper and two others — including a small trial in Annals of Internal Medicine — were pulled. A spokesperson for her former employer, Baker IDI Heart & Diabetes Institute, told us last week that they have requested more retractions:

Five papers and one letter are in the process of being retracted.

The Annals and this latest paper are included in the five papers, so we expect to see Continue reading Heart researcher who faked patient data gets 4th retraction

Psychologist Jens Forster settles case by agreeing to 2 retractions

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Jens Förster

Following questions about the veracity of multiple papers by his former employer, high-profile social psychologist Jens Förster has agreed to retract two papers as part of a deal with the German Society for Psychology (DGPs).

Last year, Förster had a paper retracted at the request of his former employer, the University of Amsterdam (UvA). In May, an investigation commissioned by UvA found that many of his experiments looked “too good to be true,” and eight papers showed strong signs of “low veracity.”

Just two of those papers are acknowledged in the settlement of a case by the DGPs against Förster, who currently works at Ruhr University Bochum. Here’s a translation of a notice from the DGPs from One Hour Translation:

Continue reading Psychologist Jens Forster settles case by agreeing to 2 retractions

Heart researcher who faked patient data gets third retraction

Screen Shot 2015-11-06 at 6.38.09 PMA heart researcher has notched her third retraction, a small 2006 trial in Annals of Internal Medicine which seemed to show that a blood pressure drug could help people with artery disease walk further with less pain.

Earlier this year, Anna Ahimastos, formerly a researcher at Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute in Melbourne, lost a larger clinical trial in JAMA and a subanalysis in Circulation Research after it was discovered she’d fabricated patient records. As principle investigator Bronwyn Kingwell told us in September:

Specifically, records were fabricated for trial participants that did not exist.

Now, following an investigation by the institute, her co-authors are proactively retracting papers, with more to come. The Annals of Internal Medicine paper, “Ramipril Markedly Improves Walking Ability in Patients With Peripheral Arterial Disease,” is being pulled due to an “inability to adequately validate primary data sources.” According to the note, Ahimastos “maintains the integrity of the data and validity of reported results:”

Continue reading Heart researcher who faked patient data gets third retraction

It’s official: Anil Potti faked cancer research data, say Feds

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Anil Potti, via Duke

Following five years of scrutiny, more than ten retractions, multiple settled lawsuits, and medical board reprimands, we may finally have some resolution on the case of Anil Potti, the once-rising cancer research star who resigned from Duke in 2010.

While there have been numerous allegations of misconduct in Potti’s work, and strong comments to that effect by Potti’s former mentor, Joseph Nevins, there has been no official finding. Today, that changes. Potti “engaged in research misconduct,” the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) concludes in a report to be published in the Federal Register on Monday.

Potti — referred to as “respondent” in the report — included “false research data” in reports of research from six different NIH grants, according to the ORI: Continue reading It’s official: Anil Potti faked cancer research data, say Feds

After court verdict, BMJ retracts 26-year-old paper

downloadToday, The BMJ retracted a 1989 paper about the role of breastfeeding and formula in infant eczema — 20 years after the data were called into question by a university report.

However, the report was kept secret — due, by some accounts, to alleged threats of a lawsuit. That is, until this year, when author Ranjit Kumar Chandra — who once dubbed himself the “father of nutritional immunology” — lost a $132 million libel case. That case, against the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) for airing a three-part documentary series on allegations of fraud against Chandra, pushed the report by his former employer Memorial University of Newfoundland into the public domain.

At 26 years, the BMJ retraction is a runner up for the longest amount of time a journal has taken to retract a paper. (We know of another retraction that was 27 years in the making, and a scientist who requested the retraction of some passages of a 1955 article in 2007, after the article became fodder for creationists.)

Here’s the first part of the retraction note:

Continue reading After court verdict, BMJ retracts 26-year-old paper

Diederik Stapel retraction count updated to 57

stapel_npcWe’ve learned about two more retractions we missed for Diederick Stapel, the Dutch social psychology researcher who has now racked up a total of 57 retractions by our count.

Both retractions were issued after a committee released a report which established fraud in dozens of papers co-authored by Stapel.

Stapel is still #4 on our leaderboard.

Continue reading Diederik Stapel retraction count updated to 57

Former ob-gyn prof notches ninth retraction; investigation still underway

Nasser Chegini
Nasser Chegini

A retired obstetrics and gynecology professor under federal investigation for misconduct has notched his ninth retraction.

The latest retraction stems from an investigation by the University of Florida, where Nasser Chegini worked until 2012, which found fabricated data in three figures in a paper on the muscle cells that line the uterus.

The paper, “Differential expression of microRNAs in myometrium and leiomyomas and regulation by ovarian steroids,” was published in The Journal of Cellular and Molecular Medicine. It’s been cited 74 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

Here’s the note:

Continue reading Former ob-gyn prof notches ninth retraction; investigation still underway

Boldt’s retraction count upped to 94, co-author takes legal action to prevent 95th

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We’ve found two recent retractions and an expression of concern for Joachim Boldt, former prominent anesthesiologist and currently Retraction Watch leaderboard’s 2nd place titleholder. He now has 94 retractions.

One of the retracted articles contains falsified data, along with a researcher who didn’t agree to be a co-author, according to an investigation by the Justus Liebig University Giessen, where Boldt used to work. The expression of concern is regarding some questionable data. The other new retraction is actually one of 88 papers that a group of editors agreed to retract back in 2011, after they were “unable to verify” approval by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) for the studies.

One of those 88 papers, we’ve discovered, has still has not been retracted. According to an editor at the journal, they haven’t removed it because one of Boldt’s co-authors has threatened them with legal action. Continue reading Boldt’s retraction count upped to 94, co-author takes legal action to prevent 95th

13th retraction issued for Jesús Ángel Lemus

Proceedings of the Royal Society B- Biological SciencesA 13th retraction has been published for Jesús Ángel Lemus, the Spanish veterinary researcher whose work colleagues have had trouble verifying.

This paper was pulled for similar reasons as his other retractions: After retrying the experiments in two independent labs, fellow authors were “unable to arrive to any sound conclusion about the validity of his analyses.” 

Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences posted the notice September 16, three years after the paper received an expression of concern.

The retraction notice, signed by every co-author but Lemus, reads:

Continue reading 13th retraction issued for Jesús Ángel Lemus