Category: by country

Harvard cancer lab subject to federal misconduct probe

Sam W. Lee, a Harvard researcher — or perhaps former Harvard researcher — who has lost three papers to retraction, including one from Nature, now has an expression of concern for another article, this one in Molecular and Cellular Biology.

The notice for that paper, 2000’s “Overexpression of Kinase-Associated Phosphatase (KAP) in Breast and Prostate Cancer and Inhibition of the Transformed Phenotype by Antisense KAP Expression,” reads: Continue reading Harvard cancer lab subject to federal misconduct probe

‘Search for inspiration’ lands too close to plagiarism, forcing retraction of grief paper

A slide from a presentation by the U.S. NSF OIG’s Jim Kroll

A pair of grief scholars in Denmark have lost a 2018 paper on ghostly apparitions after one of the researchers copied text from another article.

The study, “How many bereaved people hallucinate about their loved one? A systematic review and meta-analysis of bereavement hallucinations,” appeared in the Journal of Affective Disorders, an Elsevier publication. Authors Karina Stengaard Kamp and Helena Due — yes, a second author named Due — are with The Aarhus Bereavement Research Unit at Aarhus University.

As the retraction notice explains: Continue reading ‘Search for inspiration’ lands too close to plagiarism, forcing retraction of grief paper

Too much skin in the game: Derm journal calls out author for duplication

We often praise authors for doing the right thing by retracting with transparency. Here’s a journal that deserves recognition for its handling of a case of duplicate publication.

Acta Dermatovenerologica Alpina, Pannonica et Adriatica (ADAPA), a European derm publication, has retracted a 2018 article in smack-down fashion, calling out a co-author for deceit. The paper was a case study titled “Inflamed bilateral linear atrophoderma of Moulin in an adult woman: a case report.” According to ADAPA, a reader noticed that a virtually identical article — with the same title — had appeared in a Turkish dermatology publication in late 2017.

In an lengthy editorial, Jovan Miljković, the editor-in-chief of the journal, explained what happened after a review of the two papers found them to be “virtually identical”: Continue reading Too much skin in the game: Derm journal calls out author for duplication

Caught stealing a manuscript, author blames a dead colleague

William Faulkner

As William Faulkner wrote in Requiem for a Nun, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” Farzad Kiani learned that lesson the hard way.

Kiani, of Istanbul Sabahattin Zaim University, was the “author” of a 2018 review article in Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing titled “A survey on management frameworks and open challenges in IoT.” According to the abstract: Continue reading Caught stealing a manuscript, author blames a dead colleague

Article claiming acupuncture on parents would treat their kids through quantum entanglement has been retracted

Last year a Beijing doctor said he was “speechless” after reading a study.

The study in question, published in Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion in 2017, was titled “Discussion on quantum entanglement theory and acupuncture.” Dr. Zeng, the Beijing doctor, was among a number of critics quoted in September 2018 by What’s On Weibo, which reports on social media happenings in China: Continue reading Article claiming acupuncture on parents would treat their kids through quantum entanglement has been retracted

Former university president up to ten retractions

Akihisa Inoue

The former president of Tohoku University in Japan has just had a tenth paper retracted, because it duplicated one of his earlier works.

One of the most recent retractions by materials scientist Akihisa Inoue, late last month, was of a paper in Materials Transactions that had duplicated a now-retracted paper and was subject to an expression of concern in 2012: Continue reading Former university president up to ten retractions

A “clandestine retraction” as a paper disappears from a management journal without a trace

Daniel Jung

First it was there. Now it’s gone.

In March 2018, three researchers at Atatürk University in Turkey published“Investigation Of The Critical Factors Affecting E-Government Acceptance: A Systematic Review And A Conceptual Model” at the Innovative Journal of Business and Management, where it was freely available during 2018. It has no DOI, and no citations (that I know of).

Now it is gone; the link is redirected to the journal’s general search engine. A search for the title or authors there yields no hits; neither do the Google references to the article nor resources around it. The March 2018 issue has now an unexplained hole from pages 77–84. The Google Scholar index for this article disappeared in March 2019.

What happened? Continue reading A “clandestine retraction” as a paper disappears from a management journal without a trace

Russian homeopaths strike again (twice) in virology journal — and a skeptic strikes right back

Alexander Pachin

Homeopathy may not cure disease, but it continues to give journal editors fits, particularly at the hands of a group in Russia that has managed to publish a slew of papers on the spurious practice.

The architect of the effort appears to be one Oleg Epstein, whose company, OOO NPF Materia Medica Holding, makes homeopathic products.

Last May, PLOS ONE retracted a paper by Epstein et al titled “Novel approach to activity evaluation for release-active forms of anti-interferon-gamma antibodies based on enzyme-linked immunoassay.”

The lengthy retraction statement includes the following passages: Continue reading Russian homeopaths strike again (twice) in virology journal — and a skeptic strikes right back

Science standing by for updates as university finds fraud in earthquake paper

Damage from the 2016 Kumamoto earthquake

A researcher at Kyoto University in Japan faked some of the data in a 2017 paper in Science about the deadly Kumamoto earthquake, the university said.

According to media reports about a press conference held today, Kyoto found that the paper’s first author, Aiming Lin, had committed misconduct, including falsification of data and plagiarism. They recommended that Lin retract the paper, and said he would face sanctions, while his co-authors were cleared of wrongdoing.

Science editor in chief Jeremy Berg tells us: Continue reading Science standing by for updates as university finds fraud in earthquake paper

Joseph Thomas just earned $33.8 million in a $112.5 million settlement with Duke. Here’s his story.

Joseph Thomas

Tomorrow is Joe Thomas’s 35th birthday. And earlier this week, he received quite a birthday present, even if it wasn’t intended that way: Thomas earned a $33.75 million payout from a lawsuit he filed against Duke University six years ago.

As Retraction Watch readers may recall, Thomas was the whistleblower in a case alleging scientific misconduct that Duke settled yesterday for $112.5 million. Our Ivan Oransky has an exclusive profile of him — including how he “celebrated” the settlement — at Medscape. Continue reading Joseph Thomas just earned $33.8 million in a $112.5 million settlement with Duke. Here’s his story.