Retraction Watch readers will no doubt have realized by now that we are often frustrated by the opacity of many of the retraction notices we cover. And some critics may wonder if we’re overstating that case.
Well, wonder no more.
In a study published online yesterday in the Journal of Medical Ethics, Liz Wager and Peter Williams looked at retractions from 1988 to 2008. Their findings: Continue reading Why was that paper retracted? Peer-reviewed evidence that Retraction Watch isn’t crazy
In December, we reported on the case of William Hamman:
It’s a mind-boggling story: A United Airlines pilot claims to be a cardiologist and was eagerly sought after for medical conferences at which he taught doctors teamwork. He shared millions in grants, according to the Associated Press. But as the AP reports, William Hamman wasn’t a cardiologist at all, having never even finished medical school.
Hamman had published at least six papers using false credentials, including an MD and a PhD. In December, Jean Gayton Carroll, editor in chief of Quality Management in Health Care, told us that the journal would be “reviewing and evaluating” a paper by Hamman it published last year, “Using in situ simulation to identify and resolve latent environmental threats to patients safety: case study involving operational changes in a labor and delivery ward.” That review, we learned today, has led to a retraction.
According to the notice, which is refreshingly detailed (we added a link): Continue reading Remember William Hamman, the pilot who claimed to be a cardiologist? A retraction appears
We have a bizarre tale to relate involving the journal Surgery News, which recently lost its editor-in-chief over a rather strange editorial he wrote in the February issue of the magazine.
The ill-fated — and, we’ll stipulate, ill-advised — commentary has led to a de facto retraction of the entire publication — meaning that although no retraction notice exists that we’re aware of, neither does the issue exist in the publication’s archives.
But first, some important background. Surgery News is a trade magazine with a complicated structure. The publication, which describes itself as “the official newspaper of the American College of Surgeons [ACS],” is published by Elsevier, which supplies medical news through its International Medical News Group division. The society provides its own news, as well as the lead editor, a surgeon, who until recently was Lazar Greenfield. Greenfield, of the University of Michigan, also happens to be the president-elect of the ACS, twin responsibilities that put him at the pinnacle of influence for his specialty.
Now back to the offending editorial, which we’ll bring you in its entirety since 1) we think given the events that you should read the whole thing, and 2) because the ACS has taken the entire February issue off its website we can’t link to it even if we wanted to (more on that later). Under the heading “Gut Feelings,” Greenfield wrote (we added links): Continue reading Forget chocolate on Valentine’s Day, try semen, says Surgery News editor. Retraction, resignation follow
Last October, Retraction Watch readers will recall, up-and-coming stem cell researcher Amy Wagers retracted a study in Nature describing how her team rejuvenated blood-forming stem cells in older mice. Shane Mayack, a postdoc in Wagers’ lab who had been dismissed after an inquiry into what happened, did not sign that retraction. Since then, Mayack has not spoken to the press, except for a brief comment to Nature through her attorney.
Here, we present, unedited, Mayack’s side of the story. While accepting responsibility, she also has a number of suggestions for how universities and journals can handle these situations better. Shane can be reached at smayck[at]yahoo.com.
Since it was well covered by this blog, the readers of Retraction Watch are no doubt aware that in October 2010, a paper that I co-authored was retracted from Nature and a notice of concern was posted regarding a second paper published in Blood.
So, what went wrong? Continue reading In a retraction’s wake: Postdoc Shane Mayack, dismissed from Amy Wagers’ stem cell lab, speaks out
Have you read yesterday’s post on a retraction in Applied Mathematics Letters yet? (If you haven’t, you’ve missed the explanation of how “Both science and spirituality came from space,” along with other oddities. We’ll wait while you go read it.) But for those of you who have, it turns out that this wasn’t the first retraction of a bizarre paper in the journal this year.
In January, Granville Sewell, of the University of Texas, El Paso’s math department, published a paper there called “A Second Look at The Second Law.” Its abstract: Continue reading More on Applied Mathematics Letters: Journal retracted paper questioning second law of thermodynamics
The final two retractions by Silvia Bulfone-Paus and colleagues, among the 12 promised by Research Centre Borstel following an investigation into scientific misconduct, have appeared. Both are in the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC), and read as follows:
This article has been withdrawn by the authors.
We find that near-complete lack of information frustrating, not to mention useless to the scientific community. Unfortunately, it’s par for the course when it comes to the JBC and Bulfone-Paus retractions. The other three said exactly the same thing.
With that in mind, we thought it would be worth looking at all 12 retraction notices, as a sort of case series in journals’ transparency. We often look at particular retractions in a vacuum, but here was a chance to look at 12 papers, all retracted for the same reason, to see how each journal reported the withdrawal.
Here are the 12, in rough order, worst to best, based on how useful they are to scientists coming across them: Continue reading As last of 12 promised Bulfone-Paus retractions appears, a (disappointing) report card on journal transparency
Naoki Mori, of 16-retraction fame, believes he’s getting his job back at the University of the Ryukyus, which released him in August after learning that the cancer researcher had misused images in many of his publications.
According to a report in Science Insider, Mori’s penalty has been reduced to a 10-month suspension, and he will resume his professorship in June. Mori apparently also told Science that some journals “are considering accepting corrected papers,” although he didn’t name them. Continue reading Naoki Mori, with 16 retractions, to be rehired?
The tenth of 12 promised retractions by Silvia Bulfone-Paus and colleagues has appeared, in the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC).
The paper, “Reverse signaling through membrane-bound Interleukin-15,” was published in 2004 and has been cited 31 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. The retraction notice, just like the other one for the team’s work that appeared in the JBC, was completely uninformative: Continue reading Tenth Bulfone-Paus retraction notice appears, in Journal of Biological Chemistry
As the news of Joachim Boldt’s staggering number of retractions leaps from Retraction Watch into the mainstream press, the consortium of journal editors retracting his studies has backtracked ever so slightly, announcing today that one of the 89 studies for which the German anesthesiologist lacked ethics approval in fact had such sanction.
According to the now-16 (Updated 3/7/11, as it is up from 11 several days ago) editors, LÄK-RLP, the German body investigating the ethics component of the Boldt case: Continue reading Joachim Boldt retraction tally drops by one, editors say (but record’s still safe)
It’s official.* Joachim Boldt now holds the record for the most retractions by a single author.
As we reported the other day, a group of anesthesia journals was on the verge of revealing a list of 89 articles by Joachim Boldt that would require retraction because the German researcher had failed to receive proper approval from ethics officials for his studies. Today, the coalition issued a letter making the retractions official.
The 89 papers join an earlier retraction in October.