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Mount Sinai multiple sclerosis researcher admits to misconduct

Gareth John

A researcher who has received millions in funding from the U.S. National Institutes of Health and who runs a lab at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York has confessed to falsifying data in a 2014 paper.

Gareth John, who studies multiple sclerosis and other neurological diseases, “has expressed remorse for his actions,” according to a report released last week from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Research Integrity. Continue reading Mount Sinai multiple sclerosis researcher admits to misconduct

Controversial Australian science journalist admits to duplication in her PhD thesis

Maryanne Demasi

A prominent (yet controversial) journalist in Australia has admitted to duplicating three images that were part of her PhD thesis — a practice outside experts agreed was acceptable, if not ideal, at the time, according to a report released today.

As part of an inquiry, the University of Adelaide convened an expert panel to investigate 17 allegations of duplication and/or manipulation in Maryanne Demasi’s 2004 thesis. Duplication is a common reason for retractions, such as when researchers use the same image to depict the results of different experiments.

After earning her PhD in rheumatology, Demasi became a journalist who got headlines for more than just her reporting. In 2013, she produced a controversial series about cholesterol and fat (which suggested they have been unfairly villainized, and which cast doubt on cholesterol-lowering drugs known as statins). A few years later, Demasi was fired from the science program Catalyst, after it aired an episode alleging wi-fi could cause brain tumors.

Regarding the allegations of misconduct in Demasi’s thesis, the originals of the images in question were long gone, so in 14 instances, an expert concluded it was not possible to conclude whether or not duplication had occurred. But in the remaining three instances, Demasi admitted she had “duplicated or probably duplicated” the images:

Continue reading Controversial Australian science journalist admits to duplication in her PhD thesis

Author of a study on HPV vaccines hoodwinked journal with a fake name

The author of an article that claimed to link HPV vaccines to a higher rate of cervical cancer — the disease the vaccine is designed to prevent — deceived the journal about his real identity, according to the journal.

But the journal will leave the paper intact, simply adding a line about the author to the paper and publishing an editorial about the incident.

The subterfuge — in which the author claimed an affiliation with the Karolinska Institutet — was noted earlier this week by the Swedish medical newspaper Läkartidningen. After that, the journal added this to the author’s information on the article: Continue reading Author of a study on HPV vaccines hoodwinked journal with a fake name

A frustrated former editor asked a publishing group for help. He didn’t like what they said.

When the former editor of a public health journal didn’t get a straight answer about why the journal retracted his paper that was critical of corporate-sponsored research, he brought his concerns to an organization dedicated to promoting integrity in academic publishing. He wanted the group to help resolve the impasse he’d reached with the publisher, but was sorely disappointed.

David Egilman, the former editor of the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health, had been seeking answers about the paper for a year. In November, the journal’s editorial board resigned, in protest of the “apparent new direction that the journal appears to be moving towards.” They objected to the “unilateral withdraw[al]” of Egilman’s paper, with little explanation, the delay in publishing other papers that had been accepted under Egilman’s leadership, and the decision to appoint a new editor with industry ties.

Amidst all that upheaval at the journal, Egilman still wasn’t getting the answers he wanted about why his paper was withdrawn. So he brought his concerns to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Continue reading A frustrated former editor asked a publishing group for help. He didn’t like what they said.

When multiple doctors treat a patient, who gets to publish the case report?

Three researchers are fighting over who should get to publish a case report on a pair of unique patients.

Yoo-Mi Kim—who was not an author on the paper—claimed that he had diagnosed the patients described in the report, and should have been the one to write it up. The authors—Jun Woo Park and Soo Jung Lee—disagreed, claiming that they had treated the patients for years and had received oral consent from the patients to publish the report.

The Journal of American Association for Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus, unable to resolve the disagreement, has published an expression of concern highlighting the dispute. Continue reading When multiple doctors treat a patient, who gets to publish the case report?

A new “data thug” is born

Brendan O’Connor

In the last week, a lot more people know the name of Brendan O’Connor. Recently, the graduate student at the University of Leicester in the UK posted allegations on Twitter that a prominent psychologist at Cornell University, Robert Sternberg, had recycled large swaths of text in multiple publications. Since then, other so-called “data thugs” — such as Nick Brown and James Heathers — have added their voices to the discussion. Sternberg recently resigned as editor of Perspectives on Psychological Science, in part over concerns about his practice of frequently citing his own papers. We spoke with O’Connor about the response to his allegations — and why he took to Twitter to raise them. (Note: O’Connor’s opinions are his own, and not necessarily representative of his institution.)

Retraction Watch: How did you stumble upon the alleged text recycling by Dr. Sternberg?

Continue reading A new “data thug” is born

Infighting at journal prompts retraction of editorial “full of misinformation”

An editor thought she did a great job running an anesthesiology journal. But her colleagues— including the new editor who took over for her—heartily disagree.

During her tenure at the journal, the outgoing editor penned an editorial taking credit for the journal’s rise to success. But, according to a new commentary published in the journal, the former editor’s article presented wrong statistics, and minimized the contributions of those who had come before her. So when the new editor took office, he retracted it—and published the lengthy commentary explaining why. Continue reading Infighting at journal prompts retraction of editorial “full of misinformation”

Prominent researcher dismissed following misconduct probe

Yoshinori Watanabe

The University of Tokyo has fired a high-profile cell biologist after a probe determined his group had falsified data.

According to a news release issued today (in Japanese), the university has issued a “disciplinary dismissal” of Yoshinori Watanabe (according to our Google translate of the notice).

In 2016, the institution began an investigation of seven papers from Watanabe’s lab after receiving anonymous allegations. In August 2017, the university announced the result: Five papers contained falsified or fabricated images. One — a 2015 Science paper — has already been retracted.

According to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science, Watanabe has published more than 100 papers, which have been cumulatively cited thousands of times.

Last year, regarding the Science retraction, Watanabe told us:

Continue reading Prominent researcher dismissed following misconduct probe

Chemists duke it out over who was first to discover a 30-year-old technique

Decades ago, unbeknownst to each other, two chemists were independently working on a screening approach to identify new potential drugs. Both published papers about the technique around the same time. So now, when scientists write papers that cite the technique, who should get credit for discovering it?

Decades later, that question still hasn’t been answered — and the researchers continue to argue, this time over one’s decision not to cite the other’s work.  

More than 30 years ago, Árpád Furka—now retired from Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest—developed an approach he says has had “outstanding importance” in drug development. The technique, called split-mix synthesis, made it possible to synthesize and screen millions of peptides at once, instead of one by one. Furka patented the method in 1982, presented an abstract in 1988, and published a paper in 1991. Continue reading Chemists duke it out over who was first to discover a 30-year-old technique

Researcher loses battle with Cell over wording of retraction notice

For months, a researcher has wrestled with a journal over the wording of an upcoming retraction notice. It appears that she has lost.

Earlier this week, Cell retracted the paper, despite the protests of first author Shalon Babbitt Ledbetter. When Ledbetter learned the journal was planning to retract the biochemistry paper over image manipulations, but wouldn’t name the culprit in the notice, she shared her concerns on PubPeer. Although a 2015 letter sent to Cell from Saint Louis University identified last author Dorota Skowyra as responsible for multiple manipulations, the journal wasn’t planning to say Skowyra was responsible in the retraction notice. Which would leave all other authors — particularly Ledbetter — under a cloud of suspicion.

Now, Cell Press has finally retracted the paper, along with another paper in Molecular Cell that lists Skowyra as corresponding author. Both notices describe image manipulations that were investigated by Saint Louis University (SLU). Neither identifies who is responsible.

Continue reading Researcher loses battle with Cell over wording of retraction notice