Category: by country

Double dipping on exercise/cardiac risk paper leads to retraction

intjneurosciThe International Journal of Neuroscience has retracted a September 2005 paper by a group from Turkey who published the same article in the same month in a different journal.

The research involved looking at concentrations of blood fats in athletes and less vigorous folk, “and to examine the risks of cardiovascular diseases.”It found that:

… medium and high level of exercises did not cause significant differences in lipid and lipoprotein levels, but the sex differences were very pronounced” with “lipid and lipoprotein profile of female subjects was found to be better than that of males”.

Here’s the notice: Continue reading Double dipping on exercise/cardiac risk paper leads to retraction

Oh, the irony: Business ethics journal paper retracted for plagiarism

jabeIs this the new business ethics?

In January, we reported on a paper retracted from the Journal of Business Ethics for duplication. That earned the author a five-year publishing ban. This week, we learned of a case of plagiarism in another journal in the field, the Journal of Academic and Business Ethics. Here’s an email editor Russell Baker — no, not that Russell Baker — sent to his contact list on Wednesday: Continue reading Oh, the irony: Business ethics journal paper retracted for plagiarism

“What I find offensive is not that they plagiarized us, it’s that they did it so badly”

studies sociology scienceRetraction Watch readers may be familiar with the work of Brian Nosek, a University of Virginia psychologist who has taken a tough stance about many of the problems in his field and coordinates the Reproducibility Project. So it must have seemed quite ironic for Nosek and his co-authors to learn today that one of their papers had been outrageously — and badly — plagiarized.

Here’s the abstract of the work by Nosek, Jesse Graham, and others, which hasn’t been published in a journal yet but is posted at Nosek’s website: Continue reading “What I find offensive is not that they plagiarized us, it’s that they did it so badly”

Wash U psychologist sheds light on inquiry against former psychology grad student

Adam Savine
Adam Savine

On Tuesday, we reported on the case of Adam Savine, a former graduate student at Washington University in St. Louis who was found by the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) to have committed misconduct.

Today, Blythe Bernhard, of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, has an illuminating Q and A with Todd Braver, whose lab Savine worked in. Savine’s former mentor offers a few interesting details about the investigation into his former student.

Braver tells the paper that he’d had doubts about the integrity of Savine’s data as the student was preparing for his dissertation defense in August 2012: Continue reading Wash U psychologist sheds light on inquiry against former psychology grad student

Smoking cessation paper pulled for “almost word-for-word” similarity to authors’ previous work

jmfnmThe Journal of Maternal-Fetal & Neonatal Medicine has retracted a 2008 article on smoking cessation by a group from Sweden which they had published not many months before in a different journal.

The retracted paper was titled “Quitting smoking is perceived to have an effect on somatic health among pregnant and non-pregnant women.” The authors, from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, had published a similar paper — “Perception of Smoking-Related Health Consequences among Pregnant and Non-Pregnant Women” — in the American Journal of Addictions in 2007.

How similar?

Continue reading Smoking cessation paper pulled for “almost word-for-word” similarity to authors’ previous work

IRB issues force retraction of ulcer bug bacteria paper

jpgnA group of Turkish researchers has had a paper retracted on how to treat the bacterium that cause ulcers after the journal’s editors found “issues related to the institutional review board approval” of the project.

Here’s the retraction notice from the Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition: Continue reading IRB issues force retraction of ulcer bug bacteria paper

You plagiarized? No problem, says journal, we’ll retract so you can rewrite, and we’ll republish

mol cell biochemHere’s something we haven’t seen before: A group of researchers plagiarize, are called on it, and are then allowed to resubmit a new version that’s published, while their offending paper is retracted.

A reader  flagged the plagiarism in the original paper, “Protein domains, catalytic activity, and subcellular distribution of mouse NTE-related esterase,” by Ping’an Chang and colleagues, which led the research team to revise and resubmit the manuscript. After the journal Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry — a Springer title — published the plagiarism-scrubbed paper, the original paper required retraction.

The retraction refers to a dispute between labs, but not plagiarism: Continue reading You plagiarized? No problem, says journal, we’ll retract so you can rewrite, and we’ll republish

Wash U psych researcher cited in ORI probe, faces multiple retractions

Adam Savine
Adam Savine

The Office of Research Integrity says Adam Savine, a former post-doc graduate student in psychology at Washington University in St. Louis, committed misconduct in work that tainted three papers and six abstracts he submitted to conferences.

One of Savine’s studies that drew some media attention involved Diederik Stapel-esque research showing which brain region lights up when people see money. He was quoted in this 2010 article on Medical News Today saying:

“We wanted to see what motivates us to pursue one goal in the world above all others,” Savine says. “You might think that these mechanisms would have been addressed a long time ago in psychology and neuroscience, but it’s not been until the advent of fMRI about 15-20 years ago that we’ve had the tools to address this question in humans, and any progress in this area has been very, very recent.”

Apparently, now we know. According to the notice, Savine engaged in misconduct in research funded by four grants: Continue reading Wash U psych researcher cited in ORI probe, faces multiple retractions

Scientist whose work is “not fully supported by the available laboratory records” to retract 8 more papers

SK Manna
SK Manna

Yesterday, we reported that Sunil Kumar Manna, the head of immunology at India’s Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics, had retracted two papers for image problems.

Turns out Manna will be retracting eight more, he told us today. Here they are: Continue reading Scientist whose work is “not fully supported by the available laboratory records” to retract 8 more papers

Authors retract two papers on Remicade following legal battles

april_2009_ar_coverA group of Belgian researchers has retracted two decade-old papers in Arthritis & Rheumatism following an investigation and court case.

The papers involved the use of the drug infliximab — sold by Johnson & Johnson as Remicade  — to treat Sjögren’s syndrome, an auto-immune condition marked by the destruction of exocrine glands that secrete saliva and tears.

Infliximab is not approved for Sjögren’s. Although the two now-retracted studies suggested that it might be helpful, subsequent data did not support those findings.

Neither, apparently, did the studies themselves. Here’s the retraction notice (it’s a PDF): Continue reading Authors retract two papers on Remicade following legal battles