A Brazilian entomologist, Claudio Jose von Zuben, has been forced to retract two papers from 1997 after editors became aware that he and his colleagues had used the same figure in both.
First, the notice from Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz: Continue reading Duplication forces retractions of two 15-year-old entomology papers
A few weeks ago, we reported on the shutdown of Science-Fraud.org, a site dedicated to highlighting problems with scientific papers, thanks to legal threats. At the same time, we noted that Rui Curi, one of the authors whose work had been questioned — and whose lawyers had sent the site a cease-and-desist letter — ended up retracting a paper the site had questioned.
Now, Curi has corrected another paper that featured on Science-Fraud.org. Here’s the notice: for “Comparative toxicity of oleic and linoleic acid on human lymphocytes,” which was originally published in Life Science in 2006: Continue reading Curi-us: Author whose lawyers threatened Science Fraud corrects a paper the site criticized
A Brazilian author whose attorneys were the first to send the now-shuttered Science Fraud site a cease-and-desist letter has now had a paper retracted.
As Retraction Watch readers may know, Science Fraud shut down earlier this week in response to legal threats. Those threats were preceded by a cease-and-desist letter last month from attorneys for Rui Curi, of the University of Sao Paulo.
Curi’s work had been scrutinized by Science Fraud in a number of posts, with allegations of duplicated bands and re-used Western blots. With a gnawing suspicion that some of our more erudite readers will take issue with our use of “irony” here, Continue reading Irony? Paper by author whose attorneys sent cease-and-desist letter to Science Fraud retracted
The International Journal of Nanomedicine is retracting a paper it published in June that appears to contain an impressive amount of misappropriated text and figures.
The article, “Particokinetics: computational analysis of the superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles deposition process,” came from a group at the Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein, in São Paulo, Brazil, led by Walter Cárdenas. According to the notice: Continue reading Journal retracts nanoparticle paper, citing widespread misuse of sources
As its research institutions grow and mature, the Brazilian scientific establishment is hoping its scientists encourage research integrity and responsible conduct of research.
In late May, Ivan was invited to Brazil to take part in the Second Brazilian Meeting on Research Integrity, Science and Publication Ethics(II BRISPE). Organized by the Medical Biochemistry Institute (IBqM/UFRJ) & Alberto Luiz Coimbra Institute for Graduate Studies and Research in Engineering (COPPE/UFRJ), the meeting traveled from Rio de Janeiro to São Paulo to Porto Alegre over the course of several days.
One of the goals of the whirlwind meeting, which brought together researchers, administrators, funding agencies, and experts in scientific integrity from around the world, was to produce a Joint Statement on Scientific Integrity. That statement, into which Ivan had input, has now been published, so we thought we’d post links to it in English, Portuguese, and Spanish and check in with Sonia Maria Ramos Vasconcelos, one of the organizers of the meeting. Continue reading Brazil statement urges culture of research integrity
In August, we reported on an upcoming retraction of a paper in The Journal of Insect Behavior by Leonardo Gomes, a Brazilian forensic entomologist. At the time, one of the journal’s editors, Thomas Payne, told us that Gomes and his co-authors had been informed that “Dispersal and Burial Behavior in Larvae of Chrysomya megacephala and Chrysomya albiceps (Diptera, Calliphoridae),” would be retracted. Continue reading Retraction of paper by Brazilian entomologist downgraded to an Expression of Concern
After being found guilty of plagiarism, a Brazilian forensic entomologist has been forced to retract one paper and several chapters of a textbook, and will have at least one other paper withdrawn.
The retraction of one of the papers, “Forensic entomology and main challenges in Brazil,” in Neotropical Entomology, was reported earlier this year by Marcelo Hermes-Lima. That withdrawal followed an angry letter from Jens Amendt, of Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Hospital in Frankfurt, Germany, and Carlo C. Campobasso, of the University of Molise in Italy, to Regina Lúcia Sugayama, editor in chief of Neotropical Entomology. According to the retraction notice: Continue reading Brazilian forensic entomologist faces at least three retractions for plagiarism
Yesterday, we reported on 11 retractions in various Elsevier chemistry journals of papers from a group of Brazilian scientists who are alleged to have fabricated nuclear magnetic resonance images used in their articles.
We’d spoken with the senior author on those papers, Claudio Airoldi, who defended himself and his colleagues and denied that the NMR images had been manipulated.
Today, we heard from Tom Reller, vice president for global corporate relations at Elsevier, who offered a different version of events.
Here’s what Reller had to say, straight from his email: Continue reading Elsevier weighs in on Brazilian fraud case
The publisher Elsevier has announced that it is retracting 11 papers from a team of Brazilian researchers over concerns that the scientists committed fraud in the studies.
The notice is pegged to an October 2009 article in the Journal of Colloid and Interface Science titled “Immobilization of 5-amino-1,3,4-thiadiazole-thiol onto kanemite for thorium(IV) removal: Thermodynamics and equilibrium study” by Denis L. Guerra, Marcos A. Carvalho, Victor L. Leidens, Alane A. Pinto, Rúbia R. Viana, and Claudio Airoldi.
According to the notice: Continue reading Hazardous materials: Elsevier retracts 11 chemistry papers from Brazilian group, citing fraud
February has turned out to be a bad month for people found guilty of plagiarism. On Friday, we covered the case of the German foreign defense minister who lost his PhD after his university became aware he had copied passages from newspaper stories into his thesis.
And now we’ve learned that the University of Sao Paolo Paulo (USP) dismissed a full professor earlier this month after an investigation into a study he retracted last year because parts of it had been plagiarized. It has also stripped one of the professor’s former students of her PhD. Continue reading University of Sao Paulo fires professor after a retraction for plagiarism