by country – Page 8 – Retraction Watch

Spider researcher Jonathan Pruitt faked data in multiple papers, university finds

An investigation at McMaster University found that Jonathan Pruitt, a behavioral ecologist by training who has had 15 papers retracted in the last three years, “engaged in fabrication and falsification” including duplicating data, according to summarized findings sent to coauthors.

Kate Laskowski, an assistant professor at the University of California, Davis, shared on Twitter the summary McMaster had sent her about three papers she had coauthored with Pruitt.

Retractions should not take longer than two months, says UK Parliament committee

Science, Innovation and Technology Select Committee chair Greg Clark

A new report from a UK Parliament committee calls for scientific publishers to correct and retract papers much quicker than they currently do, for the sake of research integrity and reproducibility.

The Science, Innovation and Technology Select Committee of the House of Commons issued its report today, following an inquiry to which Retraction Watch and one of our cofounders, Ivan Oransky, provided evidence. Many others also gave evidence, including sleuth Dorothy Bishop.

The report is an extensive look at current issues of reproducibility and research integrity, and includes many recommendations. About the role of scientific publishers, the report says:

Chemist in India loses seven papers, blames outsourcing of images

A chemistry researcher in India has had seven of his papers retracted after the publisher concluded that some images in the papers showed “unexpected similarities” or had been duplicated.

The retraction notices, issued in late March by the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) in the U.K., all state that:

The authors informed the Editor that the characterization of the original samples was outsourced, and they do not have the original raw data for the published results.

Given the significance of the concerns about the validity of the data, and the lack of raw data, the findings presented in this paper are not reliable.

The corresponding author, Dhanaraj Gopi of Periyar University in Tamil Nadu, had several papers flagged on PubPeer starting in 2019, including some that have not been retracted.

US-backed researchers in Colombia accused of experimenting on animals, humans without approval

On January 16, inspectors from an environmental agency in western Colombia made some troubling findings. At a U.S.-funded facility supposed to be doing cutting-edge malaria research, researchers were keeping dozens of monkeys in dirty cages in poorly ventilated, over-lit enclosures. Several animals were smeared with feces. Some looked sick, and one was missing an eye. A fetid smell hung in the air. On the floor of a cage, a baby monkey lay dead.

It wasn’t the first time Fundación Centro de Primates (FUCEP) had run afoul of local authorities. In 2021, inspectors had turned up signs of “animal abuse” at the facility, located a few miles from the city of Cali, and found no veterinarian on site. Perhaps more damning, the researchers in charge did not have the permits required to experiment on or keep lab animals.

But the problems may run even deeper. According to an 18-months investigation by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), a U.S.-based animal-rights group, FUCEP’s parent organization, Caucaseco Scientific Research Consortium, apparently also conducted research in people without valid ethics approvals. These allegations have not previously been described in the media.

Earthquake destroyed data, claims Japanese prof found to have faked results

A professor of cell biology in Japan faked data in an influential cancer study published in Nature Neuroscience in 2019, according to an investigation by Okayama University.

The school, which released a report with its findings last month (in Japanese), found no fewer than 113 instances of fabrication as well as problems with several images in the paper, titled “Genetic manipulation of autonomic nerve fiber innervation and activity and its effect on breast cancer progression.”

The report identified Okayama’s Atsunori Kamiya as being involved in the misconduct and recommended retracting the article, which has been cited 134 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science. The paper has yet to be retracted, but an editor from the journal said they are looking into the case.

Exclusive: Former Tufts researcher suspended from animal work after abuse

A researcher and former faculty member at Tufts School of Medicine in Boston has been banned from working with animals for a year following repeated cases of abuse under his supervision, according to documents obtained by an animal-rights group.

In an Oct. 26, 2022, letter to the federal Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare, the university reported “serious and continuing noncompliance with” animal-welfare regulations. These breaches included “injections in mice via an unapproved route/location, failure to provide required analgesia, inadequate supportive care and monitoring, and failure to euthanize mice upon reaching the approved humane endpoints,” Tufts said.

When asked for his comments, the researcher “refuted most of the allegations and took no responsibility for his actions,” the university added.

Author denies Chinese censorship prompted COVID-19 retraction

The corresponding author of a recently published – and then quickly retracted – letter in The Lancet decrying the failure of the Chinese Ministry of Health to pay doctors and other health care workers says authorities did not pressure him to withdraw the piece.

The letter begins:

As the COVID-19 pandemic comes to an end in China, medical personnel who have worked tirelessly to fight the omicron (B.1.1.529) variant are now facing a new challenge. Despite their heroic efforts, many of them are now struggling to receive the financial compensation they deserve.

The second sentence cites a blog post on Weixin.

Journal hasn’t retracted ‘Super Size Me’ paper six months after authors’ request

Six months after the authors of a 2012 paper requested its retraction, a marketing journal is still investigating the concerns, Retraction Watch has learned. Other researchers had failed to replicate the findings – that consumers choose portion sizes based on their desire to signal higher social status – and discovered anomalies in the data.

The paper, “Super Size Me: Product Size as a Signal of Status,” appeared in the Journal of Consumer Research and attracted media attention from The New York Times and NPR, among other outlets. The lay media interpreted the findings as helping to explain the rise in obesity in the United States. The article has been cited 180 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science.

The same authors requested the retraction of another paper, “Dynamics of Communicator and Audience Power: The Persuasiveness of Competence versus Warmth, published in 2016 and cited 61 times, which the journal is also still investigating.

Journal pulls papers by embattled scientist at national research center in France

A nanotechnology journal has retracted two papers coauthored by a scientist in France who is accused of manipulating or reusing graphs and figures in nearly two dozen instances, Retraction Watch has learned.

The scientist, Jolanda Spadavecchia (pictured), is research director at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). In December, an article in the newspaper Le Monde described allegations of misconduct in Spadavecchia’s lab.

Spadavecchia is second author of one of the retracted papers, “Interaction of Thermus thermophilus ArsC enzyme and gold nanoparticles naked-eye assays speciation between As(III) and As(V);” she is senior author of the other, “One-pot synthesis of a gold nanoparticle–Vmh2 hydrophobin nanobiocomplex for glucose monitoring.”

Exclusive: Committee recommended pulling several papers by former Cornell med school dean

Following an investigation launched by Cornell University, a committee recommended pulling several papers by lung-disease researcher Augustine M. K. Choi, who served as dean of Weill Cornell Medicine until this year, Retraction Watch has learned.

Choi’s latest retraction, which brings him up to three so far, came on March 15, when The Journal of Clinical Investigation pulled “UCP2-induced fatty acid synthase promotes NLRP3 inflammasome activation during sepsis.” The paper has been cited 178 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science.

The retraction notice reads:

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