Category: sweden retractions

Authors retract paper claiming antidepressants prevent suicide

The authors of a study allegedly showing that antidepressants prevent suicide have retracted it over unspecified errors. Here’s the notice:

At the request of the authors and in agreement with the Editor-in-Chief and Wiley-Blackwell, the following article “Antidepressant medication prevents suicide in depression”. Acta Psychiatr Scand 2010;122:454–460 has been retracted. The retraction has been requested and agreed due to unintentional errors in the analysis of the data presented.

The original paper linked “data on the toxicological detection of antidepressants in 18 922 suicides in Sweden 1992–2003” to “registers of psychiatric hospitalization as well as registers with sociodemographic data.” It found: Continue reading Authors retract paper claiming antidepressants prevent suicide

The $240,000 retraction: Scientist responsible gives back company shares

In December, we reported on how a Swedish company that was about to go public dealt with a retraction of a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) that formed some of the basis of their work. The company, Wnt Research, was scheduled to go public on November 26, 2010, but after the retraction appeared on November 11, they postponed the initial public offering (IPO), and let every investor that had expressed an interest know about the retraction.

We thought the company’s moves demonstrated a remarkable transparency. Now we learn that the scientist responsible for the errors that led to the retraction has given back the shares which he or she was given when the company was founded. The company announced the news in a press release last week: Continue reading The $240,000 retraction: Scientist responsible gives back company shares

Blood retracts two, including a disputed paper from the Karolinska Institute

The journal Blood has two retractions this month, one of which seems particularly interesting. So let’s deal with the other one first.

The paper, “MicroRNAs 15a/16-1 function as tumor suppressor genes in multiple myeloma,” appeared online in October 2010. But according to the retraction notice, the authors

have recently discovered that the cell lines used in their paper were inadvertently misidentified. The cell lines utilized in the paper have now been found to contain the bcr/abl translocation and most likely represent the K562 CML cell line, instead of MMS1 and RPM1 myeloma cell lines. Due to this issue, the relevance of the findings to myeloma and thus, the conclusions of the paper, are not supported by the data. The authors apologize to the readers, reviewers, and editors of Blood for publishing these erroneous data.

That seems straightforward enough, and we couldn’t find any evidence that this problem affected other publications.

The second paper, however, could be more significant. Continue reading Blood retracts two, including a disputed paper from the Karolinska Institute

Update: After unexplained delay, Cell Cycle retracts paper related to work that formed the basis of anti-cancer company

In December, we reported on the retraction of a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on a potential treatment for breast cancer. We later found out that the retracted research was part of the basis of a company that had an initial public offering a few weeks later. How the company dealt with the news of the retraction made for an interesting follow-up, and speaks well of the principles of the principals.

Here’s another follow-up. The retraction notice has now appeared of a related review in Cell Cycle that we reported would be withdrawn. Here’s the text: Continue reading Update: After unexplained delay, Cell Cycle retracts paper related to work that formed the basis of anti-cancer company

Wnt Research: How a retraction delayed an IPO, shrunk investment — but should build public trust

It’s easy to focus on the downstream scientific effects of retractions. But sometimes they have financial implications, too.

Two weeks ago, we covered the retraction of a PNAS paper on a potential breast cancer treatment, one that would make tumors that didn’t respond to tamoxifen respond to the drug. We learned earlier this week from a Retraction Watch commenter that Wnt Research, a company based on the breast cancer finding and other work, was about to go public.

In fact, their initial public offering (IPO) happened today, and you can follow the price of their stock — listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange as WNT — here. But what we learned when we looked into the IPO was that it was originally scheduled for late November, and was delayed because of the retraction.

Tommy Andersson, one of the researchers on the now-retracted paper and Wnt Research’s chief scientific officer, told Retraction Watch that the company had initially planned on going public on November 26. They had written a memorandum describing the company’s work to date, and its plans, and the public was given a chance to invest before shares hit the Stockholm exchange. That memorandum included a mention of the PNAS paper, as follows (translated from Swedish): Continue reading Wnt Research: How a retraction delayed an IPO, shrunk investment — but should build public trust

PNAS paper on potential breast cancer treatment retracted

The authors of a 2009 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) have retracted the paper, which found a particular molecule could make breast tumors respond to a drug to which they’re not normally susceptible.

The paper — which has been cited five times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge — was the subject of a fair amount of press coverage, although the molecule is not yet in clinical trials. In a Reuters story, lead author Caroline Ford said of the alleged tamoxifen-sensitizing compound, Foxy-5:

“It flips the switch basically,” Ford said in a telephone interview. “It makes breast cancer cells respond to tamoxifen in women who cannot be treated with the drug,” she added. “If you don’t have that molecule you can’t get tamoxifen because there is no target.”

According to the retraction notice, signed by all three of the study’s authors: Continue reading PNAS paper on potential breast cancer treatment retracted