Category: by country

Former FDA chemist who admitted taking bribe wins back right to work in drug industry, 20 years later

FDAMore than 20 years after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration permanently debarred a former chemist for accepting bribes — and a puzzling 17 years after he asked for a pardon after helping the agency prosecute other cases — the FDA is lifting its debarment.

In 1994, chemist David J. Brancato:

…was permanently debarred from providing services in any capacity to a person with an approved or pending drug product application…

This suggests that he wasn’t even able to work with anyone with an FDA-approved product.

The reason the debarment was lifted?

Continue reading Former FDA chemist who admitted taking bribe wins back right to work in drug industry, 20 years later

HIV postdoc faked data in published paper, 2 grants

Julia_B
Julia Bitzegeio

An HIV researcher has admitted to faking data in a published paper, a manuscript, and two grant applications, according to a notice released today by the the Office of Research Integrity (ORI).

Former postdoc Julia Bitzegeio faked data in a 2013 paper, published in the Journal of Virology, about how HIV adapts to interferon. In the paper, “the manipulation was really minor,” Theodora Hatziioannou, principal investigator of the lab at the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center (ADARC) in New York City where Bitzegeio worked, told Retraction Watch. “She just made cosmetic changes.”

The paper will be corrected, Hatziioannou said. Bitzegeio has left her lab, and her future is somewhat less clear:

Continue reading HIV postdoc faked data in published paper, 2 grants

Two retractions cost economic historian book chapter and journal article

markets and morality

Francisco Gómez Camacho has lost an introduction in The Journal of Markets and Morality of a 2005 issue “for improper use of published material without attribution, as well as a a chapter in a collection of 13 scholarly essays  by Brill Publishers due to “serious citation issues.”

The introduction — to a translation of another scholars’ work, Luis de Molina’s Treatise on Money — is no longer in the online version of The Journal of Markets and Morality. On the cover page, and in the table of contents, of the treatise, references to the introduction are crossed out. Where it once was in the text — page 5 of the PDF of the treatise — is a short retraction notice:

Continue reading Two retractions cost economic historian book chapter and journal article

Gut paper retracted after university review says “figures cannot be validated by original data”

IBDA biologist at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Ohio has retracted a paper from Inflammatory Bowel Diseases after a university review found the figures within it could not be “validated by original data.”

The 2010 paper, “Elevated IL-13Rα2 in intestinal epithelial cells from ulcerative colitis or colorectal cancer initiates MAPK pathway,” concerns the elevated expression and role of an inflammatory protein in colon cancer cells.

According to the notice, corresponding author and biologist Alan Levine — who recently received a $3.9 million Avant-Garde Award for HIV/AIDS Research from the National Institute on Drug Abuse — requested the retraction.

Here’s the full notice: Continue reading Gut paper retracted after university review says “figures cannot be validated by original data”

Paper cited by New York Times for key stat gets retracted

the-new-york-times-logoA paper that had served as the key aspect of an April New York Times article about a recent surge of violence against immigrants in South Africa has since been retracted for plagiarism.

The research, which appeared in the Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, had served as the source of the newspaper’s statement that the country is “home to about five million immigrants.” That figure was later quoted in other media outlets about the issue.

However, a 2011 census put the number closer to 2.2 million immigrants, according to the non-profit fact-checking organization Africa Check. After issuing a report about the discrepancy, which also quotes experts who say the numbers are unlikely to have doubled by 2015, Africa Check contacted the Times. As Africa Check reports:

Continue reading Paper cited by New York Times for key stat gets retracted

“Data fabrication and manipulation have occurred”: Taste bud paper soured by fraud

The Journal of NeuroscienceA 2013 paper on the neurological impact of flavors has been retracted from The Journal of Neuroscience. The retraction notice offers few details (which is typical for the journal), but a statement sent to us by the last author noted that an investigation at the University of Maryland “determined that data fabrication and manipulation have occurred in this study.”

“Gustatory Stimuli Representing Different Perceptual Qualities Elicit Distinct Patterns of Neuropeptide Secretion from Taste Buds” examined the relationship between flavors and neuropeptides, molecules that send signals to the brain.

Here’s the retraction notice:

Continue reading “Data fabrication and manipulation have occurred”: Taste bud paper soured by fraud

JBC retraction on neuron development marks second for two biologists

JBCTwo biologists have retracted a second paper on the development of neurons, but that’s about all we know.

The 2007 paper from the Journal of Biological Chemistry, “The Interaction of mPar3 with the Ubiquitin Ligase Smurf2 Is Required for the Establishment of Neuronal Polarity,” concerns the role of a protein, mPar3, in neuron development. It has been cited 29 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

We don’t know why this one was retracted, because JBC (as usual) offered no explanation in its retraction note:

Continue reading JBC retraction on neuron development marks second for two biologists

Cervical cancer paper is scrapped for duplication in the same journal, year

XLargeThumb.00009577-201507000-00000.CVOver a decade ago, a case report on a woman with cervical cancer and lymphoma was “published twice” by the International Journal of Gynecological Cancer within the span of a few months. The retraction note came out just now.

One copy of the paper appeared in the July 2003 issue of the journal. The second, now-retracted, copy — “Coincidental detection of T-cell rich B cell lymphoma in the para-aortic lymph nodes of a woman undergoing lymph node dissection for cervical cancer: A case report” — was published later that year, in the September issue.

There are just a few cosmetic differences between the headlines and abstracts of the papers  — a “;” instead of a “,”; a change in verb tense, and a typo, for instance. (See a text comparison of the abstracts here.)

The brief retraction note, from the journal’s Editor in Chief Uziel Beller, doesn’t explain what took so long to act on the error — just tosses the blame to whoever was in charge of the journal at the time:

Continue reading Cervical cancer paper is scrapped for duplication in the same journal, year

“Major overlap” forces retraction of osteoporosis paper

j adv nursThe Journal of Advanced Nursing has retracted a 2006 paper by a group of authors in Hong Kong who lifted much of the text from a previous article of theirs in a competing publication.

The article, “Osteoporosis prevention education programme for women,” came from Moon Fai Chan and C.Y. Ko in the School of Nursing at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Per the abstract:
 Continue reading “Major overlap” forces retraction of osteoporosis paper

ASU professor is demoted, will correct book following “unattributed and poorly paraphrased material”

91993Matthew Whitaker at Arizona State University is revising a textbook about modern African-American history after it was found to contain “unattributed and poorly paraphrased material,” according to a statement from the author.

The revised version of the book Peace Be Still: Modern Black America from World War II to Barack Obama will include “a statement of apology and admission of error.”

As a result, Whitaker has been demoted to Associate Professor (from full Professor), costing him $20,000 per year in salary and stipend, according to The Arizona Republic. His previous salary was $163,530.

In addition,

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