Category: by author

Second retraction appears for Mart Bax

ethnosRetired Dutch anthropologist Mart Bax made a career out of making up papers, many of them on the Bosnian genocide.

He retired from the Free University in Amsterdam in 2002. It wasn’t until 2013 that the university published a report indicating that Bax never published 61 of the papers he listed on his CV, and many of the real articles were based on fabricated data.

Publisher Taylor and Francis retracted one of Bax’s papers from Ethnic and Racial Studies in April. Now they’re retracting a second, from Ethnos, using almost identical language.

Here’s the notice: Continue reading Second retraction appears for Mart Bax

Revealed: Complaint lodged against Macchiarini, “super-surgeon” under investigation

dr-paolo-macchiarini
Paolo Macchiarini

Retraction Watch has obtained copies of a misconduct complaint filed against surgeon Paolo Macchiarini, who is currently under investigation by the Karolinksa Institute in Stockholm for allegedly downplaying dangers of an experimental surgery, along with other misconduct accusations. We’re posting them here to allow researchers and clinicians to review and perhaps comment on them.

The complaint was from four surgeons at Karolinska Hospital, and was filed in August, as The New York Times reported last month. You can read the full complaint here. An excerpt: Continue reading Revealed: Complaint lodged against Macchiarini, “super-surgeon” under investigation

PubPeer files motion to dismiss Sarkar defamation case

sarkarAttorneys representing PubPeer in its defense against a subpoena by cancer researcher Fazlul Sarkar, of Wayne State University in Michigan, have submitted a motion to the Wayne County Circuit Court to quash the matter.

Sarkar’s work has appeared on the anonymized post-publication peer review site, and he isn’t happy about it. In October, he sued the site’s commenters, demanding that PubPeer release the names of his accusers. Sarkar, who has not been found to have committed research misconduct, claims he lost a lucrative job offer at the University of Mississippi as a result of the posts.

The motion — available here — argues that even if the claims of image irregularities levied against Sarkar by anonymous PubPeer posters are untrue, they don’t meet conventional standards of defamation: Continue reading PubPeer files motion to dismiss Sarkar defamation case

Italian researcher facing criminal charges notches seventh retraction

proteomicsAlfredo Fusco, a researcher in Italy under criminal investigation, now has a seventh retraction for manipulated images.

Here’s the notice for “Retraction: Identification of new high mobility group A1 associated proteins,” to which not all of the authors agreed: Continue reading Italian researcher facing criminal charges notches seventh retraction

Three more retractions appear for Florida ob-gyn under investigation

University of Florida
Nasser Chegini via University of Florida

Two Oxford journals have now put out three more retractions for ob-gyn and former University of Florida professor Nasser Chegini, who has been under ORI investigation since at least 2012. That makes a total of five retractions, by our count.

Here is the notice for “The expression profile of micro-RNA in endometrium and endometriosis and the influence of ovarian steroids on their expression” in Molecular Human Reproduction: Continue reading Three more retractions appear for Florida ob-gyn under investigation

Second expression of concern appears for chemistry group under institutional review

chemsciThe journal Chemical Science has issued an expression of concern over a 2012 article by a pair of Texas researchers whose “unclick reaction” work has been under scrutiny by their institution.

The article, “Homonuclear bond activation using a stable N,N-diamidocarbene,” was written by Kelly M. Wiggins and Christopher W. Bielawski, of UT Austin. It’s the second EoC that we know of for a paper by Wiggins and Bielawski. We covered a previous one, from Science, that appeared in June.

Here’s the notice (pdf): Continue reading Second expression of concern appears for chemistry group under institutional review

Shigeaki Kato up to 33 retractions, with five papers cited a total of 450 times

Shigeaki Kato
Shigeaki Kato

Former University of Tokyo researcher Shigeaki Kato continues to put big numbers on the board.

Last month, we reported on his 26th, 27th, and 28th retractions, all in Nature Cell Biology and cited close to 700 times. Yesterday, EMBO Journal and EMBO Reports published a total of five more retractions for the endocrinology researcher, who resigned from the university in 2012 following investigations found he had faked images.

Here’s the notice for “A cell cycle-dependent co-repressor mediates photoreceptor cell-specific nuclear receptor function:” Continue reading Shigeaki Kato up to 33 retractions, with five papers cited a total of 450 times

Nature issues Expression of Concern for paper by author who threatened to sue Retraction Watch

Ariel Fernandez, via Wikipedia
Ariel Fernandez, via Wikipedia

Nature has issued an Expression of Concern for a paper co-authored by a scientist who threatened to sue us last year for writing about another Expression of Concern for one of his other papers.

Here’s the “Editorial Expression of Concern” for “Non-adaptive origins of interactome complexity:”

Continue reading Nature issues Expression of Concern for paper by author who threatened to sue Retraction Watch

Retraction appears for social psychologist Jens Förster

forster-j-a1
Jens Förster

A retraction has appeared for Jens Förster, the former University of Amsterdam social psychologist whose work has come under serious scrutiny by two official committees.

Here’s the notice for 2012’s “Sense Creative! The Impact of Global and Local Vision, Hearing, Touching, Tasting and Smelling on Creative and Analytic Thought,” a paper which first appeared in Social Psychological and Personality Science:
Continue reading Retraction appears for social psychologist Jens Förster

“Super-surgeon” who created artificial tracheas facing new misconduct allegations

dr-paolo-macchiarini
Paolo Macchiarini

A one-time media favorite is being accused of serious misconduct in three cases where he inserted artificial windpipes into patients and treated them with stem cells. Two of the patients have died; one survives, but needs her airway cleaned every four hours by hospital staff to keep her alive.

A little over two years ago, thoracic surgeon Paolo Macchiarini soared to the top and then sunk to the bottom within days. First, his work implanting artificial tracheas hit the front page of the New York Times. Days later he was placed on house arrest for accusations of fraud and extortion.

We wrote about him a month later, when a paper of his was retracted for plagiarism.

Here’s Henry Fountain at the NYT writing about the new allegations: Continue reading “Super-surgeon” who created artificial tracheas facing new misconduct allegations