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Clinical trial of Achilles tendon therapy retracted for not actually being a clinical trial

JBJS_ak6The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery has retracted a 2012 paper because of ethical violations, initially flagged by the journal in 2013.

The study, which examined the use of autologous cell therapy in treating Achilles tendinosis, claimed in its abstract to have “conducted a randomized, double-blind study on forty Achilles tendons in thirty-two patients.” Apparently, though, it wasn’t actually a clinical trial but was somehow, according to the retraction notice, “misclassified” as such “in error.”

The problem was originally flagged by the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, which wrote the journal to tell them that it hadn’t granted ethical approval for the study, as we reported in 2013. At the time, there was a question about whether the lead author had retained records of the results, which is addressed in the retraction notice, signed by editor-in-chief Marc F. Swiontkowski and editor-in-Chief Emeritus Vernon T. Tolo: Continue reading Clinical trial of Achilles tendon therapy retracted for not actually being a clinical trial

Déjà vu: JBC epigenetics paper is retracted, then largely re-published with fewer authors

JBCA group of authors have withdrawn a 2011 Journal of Biological Chemistry paper, but then appear to have re-published almost the same paper a month later, only this time with just five of the original nine authors.

The paper, “HDAC3-dependent reversible lysine acetylation of cardiac myosin heavy chain isoforms modulates their enzymatic and motor activity,” concerns a type of protein regulation important to cardiac stress. Written by researchers at the University of Chicago and the University of Pittsburgh, it has been cited 16 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. It was rated “Exceptional” by a reviewer on the Faculty of 1000 website.

As we’ve come to expect from the JBC, here’s the full retraction notice, in all its inexplicit glory: Continue reading Déjà vu: JBC epigenetics paper is retracted, then largely re-published with fewer authors

Third retraction for GWU biologist as university seeks to dismiss his $8 million lawsuit

Rakesh Kumar, via George Washington University
Rakesh Kumar, via George Washington University

Cancer biologist Rakesh Kumar has chalked up another retraction, this time for “identical,” “duplicated,” and “replicated” figures and images.

It comes on the heels of a flurry of motions in Kumar’s $8 million lawsuit against his employer, George Washington University, for breach of contract and emotional distress because it removed him as department chair last year and placed his research on hold. Kumar remains employed by the university.

The retracted paper, published in Development in 2004, “Metastasis-associated protein 1 deregulation causes inappropriate mammary gland development and tumorigenesis,” analyzed the role of a protein, MTA1, in mammary gland development and cancer. It was published while Kumar was at M.D. Anderson in Houston, and has been cited 81 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

By our count, Kumar now has three retractions and five corrections. Numerous anonymous comments on Kumar’s papers have been posted on PubPeer, many of them critiquing images. Here’s the complete notice from Development: Continue reading Third retraction for GWU biologist as university seeks to dismiss his $8 million lawsuit

Dude, whose gene is that? Genetics paper retracted for lack of permission

pbrPlant Biotechnology Reports is retracting a 2009 paper by a group of researchers in South Korea because the authors submitted the article “without the permission” of the owner of a gene used in the study.

The paper abstract is no longer online, though the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) recommends that retraction notices be linked to the retracted article wherever possible. So we can’t even tell you what the paper is about, outside of its title: “T1 transgenic tobacco plants carrying multicopy T-DNAs at the same locus exhibit various expression levels of transgenes.”

Here’s all we’ve got—the retraction notice itself: Continue reading Dude, whose gene is that? Genetics paper retracted for lack of permission

PNAS paper on dengue virus pulled due to contamination

PNAS_ak11smThe authors of a paper on dengue virus vaccine design published last year in PNAS are retracting it after discovering that their experimental dengue virus was contaminated.

Although they are confident that the strategy is sound, the authors write in their commendably detailed retraction notice that the “inadvertent error” rendered the results “uninterpretable.”

Here’s the retraction notice: Continue reading PNAS paper on dengue virus pulled due to contamination

Double-dipping equals double retraction for fracking paper

tran por medTransport in Porous Media and the Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering have retracted two articles on shale gas by Chinese researchers for duplication and other “mistakes.”

The articles came from a group at the State Key Laboratory of Oil and Gas Reservoir Geology and Exploitation at Southwest Petroleum University, in Chengdu. The articles share a corresponding author.

According to the abstract of the TPM paper, “Pressure Transient Analysis for Multi-stage Fractured Horizontal Wells in Shale Gas Reservoirs”:

The presented model could be used to interpret pressure signals more accurately for shale gas reservoirs.

Make that a double, according to its notice:

Continue reading Double-dipping equals double retraction for fracking paper

NIH cancer paper retracted for faked data

JCIFollowing an investigation into research misconduct, the Journal of Clinical Investigation has retracted a cancer genetics paper from a laboratory at the National Institutes of Health due to “data falsification and fabrication” of four figures and a table in the paper.

The paper, “FOXO3 programs tumor-associated DCs to become tolerogenic in human and murine prostate cancer,” describes an overexpressed gene in mouse prostate cancers that appears to suppress immune system cells.

The journal retracted the paper following an investigation into author Stephanie K. Watkins, then a postdoctoral fellow at the National Cancer Institute. According to a NIH press release released about the study in March 2011, the work “has led to the submission of a patent application by the NIH on behalf of Hurwitz and Watkins to target FOXO3 as a way to boost immune responses in cancer and to silence excessive immune responses in autoimmune diseases.” We found an NIH record of the patent application, but no record of an approved patent at the United States Patent and Trademark Office under either Hurwitz or Watkins’ names.

The paper has been cited 62 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. Here’s the full notice: Continue reading NIH cancer paper retracted for faked data

Undisclosed industry funding prompts correction of fracking paper

152 page minimum spine. Editor: Matt Hotze, JEM: Esther RTP: Diane Murphy

Environmental Science & Technology has issued a correction for a March 2015 paper on methane contamination from gas wells after learning that the authors failed to disclose funding from Chesapeake Energy Corp., a major U.S. energy producer.

The paper, “Methane Concentrations in Water Wells Unrelated to Proximity to Existing Oil and Gas Wells in Northeastern Pennsylvania,” came from a group led by Donald Siegel, of Syracuse University. In the correction, Siegel acknowledges having received “funding privately” from Chesapeake for the study, which found: Continue reading Undisclosed industry funding prompts correction of fracking paper

Lead poisoning article disappears for “legal” — but mysterious — reasons

OM_ak4A 2014 article in Occupational Medicine has been pulled with no retraction notice. Instead, the text was replaced with eight ominous words:

This article has been removed for legal reasons

Continue reading Lead poisoning article disappears for “legal” — but mysterious — reasons

CrossFit gym owner sues Ohio State, says fraudulent data led to $273 million in NIH grants

Mitch Potterf
Mitch Potterf
In an lawsuit unsealed yesterday, the owner of a CrossFit gym is suing Ohio State University (OSU) under the False Claims Act, claiming that researchers faked data in a university-based study involving his gym — and that OSU used the study to win $273 million in Federal grants.

The suit, originally filed in February in the U.S. District Court of Southern Ohio by Mitch Potterf, owner of a Columbus, Ohio CrossFit, alleges that a 2013 paper by OSU’s Steven Devor and colleagues falsely reported that nine subjects had dropped out of the study because of “overuse or injury.” The study, we should note, concluded that CrossFit is a useful form of exercise. It has been cited twice, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

As John Thomas, an attorney who handles False Claims Act cases, explained in a Retraction Watch guest post in March: Continue reading CrossFit gym owner sues Ohio State, says fraudulent data led to $273 million in NIH grants