Category: canada

An investigation at McMaster University found that Jonathan Pruitt, a behavioral ecologist by training who has had 15 papers retracted in the last three years, “engaged in fabrication and falsification” including duplicating data, according to summarized findings sent to coauthors.  

Kate Laskowski, an assistant professor at the University of California, Davis, shared on Twitter the summary McMaster had sent her about three papers she had coauthored with Pruitt. 

Continue reading Spider researcher Jonathan Pruitt faked data in multiple papers, university finds

The ‘publish or perish’ culture is no longer reserved for academic faculty and post-doctoral fellows. The paradigm has spilled over (or bled into) medical training,  aided by the digital revolution. The widespread availability of online library catalogs and referencing software has enabled the mass production of systematic reviews and meta-analyses. 

In short, medical research no longer requires original ideas, just access to the internet, which is perhaps why, as one 2018 editorial put it, there is “Replication, Duplication, and Waste in a Quarter Million Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses.”

With all of that in mind, the orthopaedic surgery residents at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, gathered virtually for their annual research day to debate whether they supported or rejected the status quo that residents be encouraged to publish systematic reviews and meta-analyses. At the start of the debate, following an opening Visiting Professor Presentation on trends in retractions by Retraction Watch co-founder Ivan Oransky, 58% of the residents opposed the status quo, while 42% supported it. 

Continue reading Should residents and fellows be encouraged to publish systematic reviews and meta-analyses?

A major Canadian medical journal has retracted a letter to the editor by a prominent surgeon in Quebec who expressed reservations about a photo the journal had published of two young girls, one of whom was wearing a hijab.

The photo in question (above) ran on the cover of the November 8, 2021 issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal.The image prompted a letter from Sherif Emil, an endowed chair of surgery at Montreal Children’s Hospital of McGill University. Published December 20, the letter voiced concern that the photograph used “an instrument of oppression [the headcovering] as a symbol of diversity and inclusion.” (That’s in the title of the letter, which the journal now acknowledges writing, not Emil.) 

As the CBC reported, Emil wrote that:

Continue reading Medical journal retracts letter calling hijab ‘an instrument of oppression’

Jonathan Pruitt, a behavioral ecologist and Canada 150 Research Chair who has had a dozen papers retracted following allegations of data fraud, now appears to have had his doctoral dissertation withdrawn. 

The news, which was first noted by Nick DiRienzo, who co-authored papers with Pruitt but has been one of the scientists trying to cleanse the scientific record of Pruitt’s problematic work, suggests that Priutt now lacks a PhD, generally considered a requirement for professorships.

Continue reading Behavioral ecologist Jonathan Pruitt’s PhD dissertation withdrawn

A researcher in Canada whose once-brilliant career in kinesiology went from plaudits from his peers to criminal charges of horrific abuse of his wife has notched his third retraction. 

As we reported in 2018, Abdeel Safdar, formerly of McMaster University and Harvard, where he was a postdoc, was the subject of an institutional investigation over concerns about the integrity of the data in a pair of his published studies. At the time, journals had flagged only two of his articles, both written with a frequent co-author, Mark Tarnopolsky, of McMaster. Tarnopolsky is considered a leading figure in kinesiology, and together he and Safdar had written some 30 papers. 

The newest retraction involves a 2016 article in Skeletal Muscle titled “Exercise-induced mitochondrial p53 repairs mtDNA mutations in mutator mice.” Safdar was first author and Tarnopolsky the senior and corresponding author. 

According to the retraction notice: 

Continue reading Researcher charged with abusing his wife has third paper retracted

Citing a misconduct investigation, the journal Stem Cells has retracted a 2009 article coauthored by a researcher whose work has been under suspicion for roughly five years. 

The paper was titled “Cell adhesion and spreading affect adipogenesis from embryonic stem cells: the role of calreticulin.” The retraction notice, which is behind a paywall, states: 

Continue reading ‘Those unfortunate events:’ Second retraction for stem cell scientist in Canada accused of misconduct

A journal has retracted a paper on a drug for a blood disorder 20 years after it was published — and 17 years after an author of the article was told to request the move by his university.

The retraction is of a paper in Therapeutic Drug Monitoring by Gideon Koren and colleagues, then at the University of Toronto (U of T): Continue reading Controversial pediatrics researcher has 20-year-old paper retracted for misconduct

A once-prominent bone researcher whose career crumbled after allegations of misconduct has lost her medical license in Canada.  

The researcher, Abida Sophina “Sophie” Jamal, formerly of the University of Toronto, had been considered a rising star in the international community of osteoporosis researchers, winning awards and collaborating with some of the leading senior investigators in the field.

But on March 6, 2018, Jamal was summoned by a disciplinary committee of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario to hear the following letter: Continue reading Researcher banned from federal Canadian funding after misconduct loses medical license