Category: korea retractions

Herbal arthritis remedy study retracted for “copyright issues”

The authors of a clinical study of an herbal medication have retracted after it became clear that one of the study authors had included two figures without the consent of his co-investigators.

The paper was a study of Green Cross Corporation of Korea’s SHINBARO, which was approved last year for the treatment of osteoarthritis by the Korean FDA.

The editors of the Archives of Pharmacal Research, where the research found a home, ran this notice: Continue reading Herbal arthritis remedy study retracted for “copyright issues”

Retraction count grows to 35 for scientist who faked emails to do his own peer review

Hyung-In Moon

Hyung-In Moon, the South Korean plant compound researcher who made up email addresses so he could do his own peer review, is now up to 35 retractions.

The four new retractions are of the papers in the Journal of Enzyme Inhibition and Medicinal Chemistry that initially led to suspicions when all the reviews came back within 24 hours. Here’s the notice, which includes the same language as Moon’s 24 other retractions of studies published in Informa Healthcare journals: Continue reading Retraction count grows to 35 for scientist who faked emails to do his own peer review

Korean cardiology journal retracts one paper for plagiarism, and another for duplication

A Korean cardiology journal has retracted a 2011 review article because it “seriously” plagiarized a 2009 paper in another journal.

Here’s the notice, which is dated May 24, 2012 but just came to our attention, thanks to a post by Marilyn Mann: Continue reading Korean cardiology journal retracts one paper for plagiarism, and another for duplication

Journal editor resigned in wake of retractions for fake email addresses that enabled self-peer review

The case of Hyung-In Moon — the researcher who faked email addresses for potential peer reviewers so he could do his own peer review — has already led to one resignation.

Emilio Jirillo, the editor of Immunopharmacology and Immunotoxicology, which retracted 20 of Moon’s papers, stepped down earlier this year in the wake of the case, Retraction Watch has learned.

Here’s a note the publisher posted on the journal’s site on June 15: Continue reading Journal editor resigned in wake of retractions for fake email addresses that enabled self-peer review

Authors retract Digestion paper for “unacceptably high number of errors”

A group of South Korean researchers has decided to withdraw a paper they recently published in the journal Digestion because it was filled with mistakes.

The paper, “Endoscopy-Based Decision Is Sufficient for Predicting Completeness in Lateral Resection Margin in Colon Endoscopic Submucosal Dissection,” was published earlier this year (and online in late 2011) by a group in Seoul. But according to the retraction notice:

Continue reading Authors retract Digestion paper for “unacceptably high number of errors”

20 more retractions for scientist who made up email addresses so he could review his own papers

Hyung-In Moon, the South Korean plant compound researcher who came up with fake email addresses so that he could do his own peer review, has retracted twenty more papers, all in Immunopharmacology and Immunotoxicology, an Informa Healthcare title.

Here are the papers: Continue reading 20 more retractions for scientist who made up email addresses so he could review his own papers

South Korean plant compound researcher faked email addresses so he could review his own studies

Hyung-In Moon

Scientists frustrated by the so-called “third reviewer” — the one always asking for additional experiments before recommending acceptance — might be forgiven for having fantasies of being able to review their own papers.

But one Korean scientist, Hyung-In Moon, managed to do just that, through what must have seemed like clever subterfuge at the time. And he got away with it for a while — until he didn’t, as witnessed by this retraction notice for “Larvicidal activity of 4-hydroxycoumarin derivatives against Aedes aegypti,” published in Pharmaceutical Biology, an Informa Healthcare title: Continue reading South Korean plant compound researcher faked email addresses so he could review his own studies

A correction for Alirio Melendez, in Journal of Cellular Physiology

We’ve been covering the case of Alirio Melendez, three of whose papers have been retracted amidst questions about almost 70 studies. The latest development is a correction in the Journal of Cellular Physiology, which has already retracted one of his papers, of a study on which he was a co-author.

Here’s the correction for “Short dysfunctional telomeres impair the repair of arsenite-induced oxidative damage in mouse cells”: Continue reading A correction for Alirio Melendez, in Journal of Cellular Physiology

Group retracts microRNA paper after realizing reagent was skewing results

A retraction from a high-profile group uncovered a technical limitation involving a widely used reagent.

Some quick background: the sequence hypothesis central hypothesis dogma of biology states that DNA gets transcribed to RNA that gets translated into proteins. Some RNAs, however, don’t code for proteins, but instead help to regulate gene expression. These microRNAs are tiny in size, but can regulate gene expression across animal and plant kingdoms.

In September 2011, the Molecular Cell published an entire issue with regulatory RNA as its theme. V. Narry Kim, associate professor at Seoul National University and high-profile microRNA researcher contributed a study that her group has now retracted just months later on June 29.

The problem? A reagent used to purify miRNAs favors some miRNAs and fails to isolate those rich low in guanine and cytosine — two of the four building blocks of RNA — or those with few secondary folding structures.

A first? Papers retracted for citation manipulation

In what appears to be a first, two papers have been retracted for including citations designed to help another journal improve its impact factor rankings. The articles in The Scientific World Journal cited papers in Cell Transplantation, which in turn appears to have cited to a high degree other journals with shared board members.

Here’s publisher Hindawi’s statement on the matter, which involved their publication The Scientific World Journal: Continue reading A first? Papers retracted for citation manipulation