A year ago, PLOS ONE published a study claiming that there was strong evidence that a person wrapped in the Shroud of Turin — according to lore, the burial shroud of Jesus Christ — had suffered “strong polytrauma.”
Today, they retracted it.
According to the retraction notice for “Atomic resolution studies detect new biologic evidences on the Turin Shroud,” Continue reading Over authors’ objections, PLOS ONE retracts paper claiming Shroud of Turin showed evidence of trauma
In 2015, a group of researchers based in Spain decided to write a review article on high blood pressure. But when they looked over eight articles co-authored by the same person, they noticed some undeniable similarities.
Over the last few years, Giuseppe Derosa, based at the University of Pavia in Italy, has racked up 10 retractions after journals determined he’d published the same material multiple times. But there’s much more to this story: The researchers in Spain (led by Luis Carlos Saiz of the Navarre Regional Health Service in Pamplona) kept digging into his publication record, and have since identified dozens of additional potential duplicates. Although the outside researchers alerted journals to the additional potentially problematic papers in 2015, most have not taken action; recently, two journals published by Taylor & Francis flagged 12 of Derosa’s articles, three of which they had been alerted about in 2015 by Saiz and colleagues.
Now, Saiz is telling his story — and why duplication of medical research matters:
A surgery journal retracted a 2014 paper last month after discovering that the study has “no scientific validity.”
Mario Schietroma and his coauthors, based at the University of L’Aquila in Italy, reported that giving patients high concentrations of oxygen during and after colorectal surgery significantly reduced their risk of infections. Although the authors reported significant p-values, the retraction notice states that, “upon recalculation, no p-values were close to significant.” The University of L’Aquila told Retraction Watch it is investigating, but did not provide details. Continue reading Paper used to support WHO guidelines on preventing infections “has no scientific validity”
Two stem cell scientists who left Harvard University in the aftermath of a messy misconduct investigation may have found new roles in Italy’s National Institute of Health.
According to a document on the institute’s website, which we had translated, Piero Anversa and Annarosa Leri have been approved to start work at the Istituto Superiore di Sanità (ISS) by the institute’s board of directors. However, the president of the organization told us that the hirings are not yet final.
The document says the board unanimously recommended the appointments of Anversa and Leri on January 31 as winning candidates with “a rating of ‘excellent.’”
According to the document, Anversa would be an ISS expert in stem cell-based treatments for diabetes and Leri would be an expert in stem-based therapies for cardiovascular disease.
However, ISS president Gualtiero Ricciardi told Retraction Watch: Continue reading Stem cell researchers investigated for misconduct recommended for roles at Italy’s NIH
A researcher who is facing a criminal investigation in Italy for research misconduct has seen five more papers retracted, for a total of 16 15.
Molecular and Cellular Biology has retracted four papers published between 1987 to 2001 by Alfredo Fusco, a cancer researcher in Italy; the Journal of Virology retracted one 1985 paper. Fusco was first author on two papers and last author on three. Both journals are published by The American Society for Microbiology (ASM), which issued identical retraction notices for all five papers, mentioning “evidence of apparent manipulation and duplication.”
Carlo Croce, a cancer researcher now at the Ohio State University, who has been dogged by misconduct allegations, co-authored one of the papers. Croce now has eight retractions.
Here’s the notice presented for all five retractions: Continue reading Retraction count for Italian researcher swells to 15 as five papers fall
Title: Tranexamic Acid in Patients Undergoing Coronary-Artery Surgery
What Caught Our Attention: When the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) publishes a correction that is more than a misspelling of a name, we take a look. When NEJM publishes a 500-word correction to the data in a highly cited article, we take notice. This study tested the effects of a drug to prevent blood loss in patients undergoing heart surgery; it’s been the subject of correspondence between the authors and outside experts. The correction involved tweaks — lots of tweaks — to the text and tables, which did not change the outcomes. Continue reading Caught Our Notice: Big journal, big correction
A JAMA journal has issued an expression of concern for a 2013 paper after discovering “substantial overlap” with a recently retracted paper in another journal.
In April 2017, the editors of JAMA Otolaryngology − Head & Neck Surgery received allegations that the paper included data that had been published in other journals. After investigating, the editors discovered extensive overlap between several sections of the JAMA paper and a now-retracted 2015 paper by the same group. The 2015 paper, published in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons (JACS), was pulled in July 2017, after the editors determined the statistical results were “incorrect” and “the data do not support the conclusions of the article.”
Given the overlap between the two papers, the JAMA editors contacted the University of L’Aquila, where the authors work, to request a formal investigation to evaluate the “integrity of the research.” Jay Piccirillo, the editor of JAMA Otolaryngology − Head & Neck Surgery, told us:
Continue reading JAMA journal calls for formal investigation into surgery group’s work
Title: Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, diet and gut microbiota
What Caught Our Attention: The paper was co-authored by Carmine Finelli, who in the past took responsibility for a dramatic transgression: Stealing material from an unpublished manuscript by one of its reviewers. After the paper that stole from the manuscript was retracted in 2016, Finelli earned a second retraction earlier this year — again, for plagiarism. (He’s also lost another paper from Oncotarget, which was removed without any information.) Now, a fourth retraction has popped up, for using material “published previously.” Unsure of the source of this material, we Googled some of the phrases from the retracted article. While we cannot say for sure, we offer these comparisons for you — the reader — to consider: Continue reading Caught Our Notice: 4th retraction for peer reviewer who stole manuscript
A journal is retracting a paper on the relative merits of one fertility procedure compared to another because the study never received ethical review or approval.
In the paper, “Intracytoplasmic morphologically selected sperm injection versus conventional intracytoplasmic sperm injection: a randomized controlled trial,” originally published Aug. 27, 2015 in Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology, the authors wrote: Continue reading Fertility docs said their study didn’t need ethics review. An investigation said they were wrong.
The researcher whose brazen theft of a manuscript he had reviewed prompted a “Dear plagiarist” letter from the aggrieved author once the deceit was discovered has lost a second paper for plagiarism.
International Scholarly Research Notices, a Hindawi publication, has retracted a 2012 study by Carmine Finelli and colleagues, citing widespread misuse of text from two previously published articles. The removal was prompted by the curiosity of a scientist in England who, on reading about Finelli’s first retraction, made the logical assumption: once a plagiarist, often a plagiarist.
The review article was titled “Physical Activity: An Important Adaptative Mechanism for Body-Weight Control.” The journal is not indexed by Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science, but the paper has been cited seven times, according to Google Scholar. According to the retraction notice: Continue reading Researcher who stole manuscript during peer review earns second retraction