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Should scientific misconduct be handled by the police? It’s fraud week at Nature and Nature Medicine

naturemed1213It’s really hard to get papers retracted, police might be best-equipped to handle scientific misconduct investigations, and there’s finally software that will identify likely image manipulation.

Those are three highlights from a number of pieces that have appeared in Nature and Nature Medicine in the past few weeks. Not surprisingly, there are common threads, so join us as we follow the bouncing ball. Continue reading Should scientific misconduct be handled by the police? It’s fraud week at Nature and Nature Medicine

A retracted retraction? Authors salvage entomology paper with image issues

jtbThe paper is dead. Long live the paper!

Earlier this year, we brought you the case of a group of Brazilian insect researchers who lost two 15-year-old papers in different journals for duplication. One of those papers has been resurrected, albeit in a rather puzzling way.

The article, “Non-local interactions and the dynamics of dispersal in immature insects,” had appeared in the Journal of Theoretical Biology, which had issued the following retraction notice:
Continue reading A retracted retraction? Authors salvage entomology paper with image issues

Nature Medicine retracts MS paper with ghost data by former GSK researcher

naturemed1213Nearly six months after first expressing concern about the validity of a 2010 paper on multiple sclerosis, Nature Medicine has retracted the article for containing “erroneous” data — which in this case don’t seem to have existed, making them more fabricated than wrong.

The paper, “Crucial role of interleukin-7 in T helper type 17 survival and expansion in autoimmune disease,” came from a group led by Jingwu Zhang, who at the time ran GlaxoSmithKline’s Research and Development Center in Shanghai.

In June, the journal issued an expression of concern about the article after readers discovered problems with the data, as reported by Nature Medicine’s blog.
Continue reading Nature Medicine retracts MS paper with ghost data by former GSK researcher

Same “difference,” as anesthesia paper retracted for plagiarism

Cover, Coverabbild, Titel, TitelbildA group of anesthesiology researchers in China has lost their 2011 paper in Der Anaesthesist because, well, the article wasn’t theirs to begin with.

The paper, “Different anesthesia methods for laparoscopic cholecystectomy,” came from authors at the 309th Hospital of PLA, in Beijing, who purported to report on a randomized trial of 68 patients undergoing laparoscopic colon surgery with either general or spinal (that is, a nerve block) anesthesia. According to the abstract:
Continue reading Same “difference,” as anesthesia paper retracted for plagiarism

Author dispute leads to retraction of neurology paper

cjnsCall us old-fashioned, but we think that if a group of authors set out to write an article about a viewpoint, they probably ought to share that viewpoint.

But that’s not the case with a bunch of researchers led by Tjaard Ubbo Hoogenraad, a neurologist in the Netherlands specializing in Alzheimer’s disease. The study, “A Viewpoint about the Treatment of Wilson’s Disease,” appeared in the July 2013 issue of the Canadian Journal of Neurological Sciences.  (Wilson’s disease is a rare genetic disorder in which the body loses the ability to get rid of copper, which in turn accumulates with toxic effect in tissues.)

Evidently, that viewpoint wasn’t quite shared. According to the retraction notice:  Continue reading Author dispute leads to retraction of neurology paper

Former federal contractor faked data, says ORI

oriweb_logoThe Office of Research Integrity has found that Timothy Sheehy, formerly a scientist at a contractor for the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research, committed misconduct in work paid for by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), National Institutes of Health (NIH), and a contract to his former company, SAIC-Frederick, Inc.

According to a notice in the Federal Register today, ORI found faked data in a 2010 paper, “Simultaneous Recovery of DNA and RNA from Formalin-Fixed Paraffin-Embedded Tissue and Application in Epidemiologic Studies,” that Sheehy and colleagues published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers, & Prevention: Continue reading Former federal contractor faked data, says ORI

Cancer-anorexia paper retracted for “unacceptable” duplication

doveDrug Design, Development and Therapy has retracted a 2013 paper by a group from Italy for duplication.

The retraction notice for the paper, “Drugs in development for treatment of patients with cancer-related anorexia and cachexia syndrome,” fairly bristles with indignation: Continue reading Cancer-anorexia paper retracted for “unacceptable” duplication

Drug withdrawal: St. Louis Krokodil paper disappears

ajmedOn November 11, St. Louis’s KTVI reported that krokodil, a nasty opioid concoction with roots in Russia, had arrived in their town. They based that report on a case study published in the American Journal of Medicine, “Krokodil’—A Designer Drug From Across the Atlantic, with Serious Consequences,” and interviewed two of the paper’s authors, Dany Thekkemuriyil and Unnikrishnan Pillai.

The case study involved a 30-year-old man the Thekkemuriyil and Pillai said they had seen at St. Mary’s Health Center in Richmond Heights, Missouri. As the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported a few days later: Continue reading Drug withdrawal: St. Louis Krokodil paper disappears

Mathematicians have second paper retracted

inequalA group of mathematicians in Iran have had a second paper retracted, and if we may, neither of the notices adds up.

Here’s the notice: for the new paper, in the Journal of Inequalities and Applications: Continue reading Mathematicians have second paper retracted

Lack of ethical clearance prompts expression of concern from bone journal

jbjsThe Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery has issued an expression of concern about a paper whose authors may not have obtained proper ethical clearance.

Here’s the notice, signed by editor in chief Vernon Tolo: Continue reading Lack of ethical clearance prompts expression of concern from bone journal