Category: the netherlands

Poldermans update: Magazine cites lack of informed consent, bogus patient surveys, invented data and more

Larry Husten at CardioBrief has an update on the case of Don Poldermans, a leading Dutch cardiologist who was accused of various iterations of research misconduct. Poldermans was fired last November by Erasmus Medical Center, where he had been head of perioperative cardiac care before the scandal.

According to Husten, Jeroen Bax, another prominent Dutch cardiologist with strong ties to Poldermans, has been cleared of wrongdoing by his institution, Leiden University Medical Centre: Continue reading Poldermans update: Magazine cites lack of informed consent, bogus patient surveys, invented data and more

Rabies paper retracted for plagiarism, and more from the Journal of Clinical Pathology

A cardinal (if oft-broken) rule of headline writing is to avoid the use of question marks. We think it’s particularly important to do so when the potential for ironic misadventure lurks.

To wit: The Journal of Clinical Pathology (JCP) has withdrawn/retracted a 2008 paper by a group of Indian authors (from the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences, at Deemed University) whose cliff-hanging title asks the question “Tracking the footprints of the rabies virus: are we any closer to decoding this elusive virus?” Continue reading Rabies paper retracted for plagiarism, and more from the Journal of Clinical Pathology

Errors force retraction of Blood paper on genetics of Hodgkin’s lymphoma

The authors of a paper published last September in Blood about alleged links between certain genes and Hodgkin’s lymphoma have retracted it, after realizing they’d made mistakes in their calculations.

The retraction notice for “Multiple HLA class I and II associations in classical Hodgkin lymphoma and EBV status defined subgroups,” dated January 20 and signed by all of the authors, clearly explains what went wrong, taking pains to note that there was no misconduct involved: Continue reading Errors force retraction of Blood paper on genetics of Hodgkin’s lymphoma

Why editors should stop ignoring anonymous whistleblowers: Our latest LabTimes column

A retraction notice appeared a few months ago in the Biophysical Journal:

This article has been retracted: please see Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal (http://www.elsevier.com/locate/withdrawalpolicy).

This article has been retracted at the request of Edward Egelman, Editor-in-Chief.

The editors have noted that there is a substantial overlap of figures and text between this Biophysical Journal article and D. Rutkauskas, V. Novoderezkhin, R.J. Cogdell and R. van Grondelle. Fluorescence spectral fluctuations of single LH2 complexes from Rhodopseudomonas acidophila strain 10050. Biochemistry, 43 (2004) 4431–4438, doi:10.1021/bi0497648. The submission of this paper was inconsistent with the Biophysical Journal policy which states: “Manuscripts submitted to Biophysical Journal (BJ) must be original; papers that have already been published or are concurrently submitted elsewhere for publication are not acceptable for submission. This includes manuscripts previously submitted to BJ, as well as material that has been submitted to other journals while BJ is considering the manuscript. If some part of the work has appeared or will appear elsewhere, the authors must give the specific details of such appearances in the cover letter accompanying the BJ submission. If previously published illustrative material, such as figures or tables, must be included, the authors are responsible for obtaining the appropriate permissions from the publisher(s) before the material may be published in BJ”. We are therefore retracting the publication of the Biophysical Journal article.

Ordinarily, such duplications go to the bottom of our list of retractions to cover, despite how common they are. There’s usually less of a story behind them than there is behind a completely opaque notice, or behind one that sports a whiff of fraud. But they’re still important, as Bruce Chabner, the editor of The Oncologist, pointed out in a recent issue of his journal in which a duplication retraction appeared: Continue reading Why editors should stop ignoring anonymous whistleblowers: Our latest LabTimes column

Science drops other shoe in Stapel case, retracts recent paper on chaos

At the beginning of November, Science issued an “editorial expression of concern” over a 2011 paper by the disgraced Dutch social psychologist Diederik Stapel, in the wake of an announcement by his former employer Tilburg University, that it had found evidence of fraud in Stapel’s body of work.

A month later, Science has gone the extra step, publishing a retraction notice by Stapel and his co-author, Siegwart Lindenberg. The notice, dated Dec. 1, 2011, makes it clear that Stapel acted alone in the matter: Continue reading Science drops other shoe in Stapel case, retracts recent paper on chaos

Breaking news: Prolific Dutch heart researcher fired over misconduct concerns

Don Poldermans, a leading heart specialist, has been fired over concerns that he committed research misconduct. According to a report on the website DutchNews.nl:

Erasmus University in Rotterdam has sacked a professor in cardio-vascular medicine for damaging the institution’s academic integrity and for ‘scientific misconduct’, the NRC reports on Thursday.

The professor is accused of faking academic data and compromising patient trust, the paper says. In particular, he failed to obtain patient consent for carrying out research and recorded results ‘which cannot be resolved to patient information,’ the university said.

Don Poldermans has spent years researching the risk of complications during cardio-vascular surgery and has some 500 publications to his name.

A spokesman for Poldermans told the paper he admitted not keeping to research protocols but denied faking data. Continue reading Breaking news: Prolific Dutch heart researcher fired over misconduct concerns

Science expresses “concern” about Stapel paper

A day after Tilburg University released its preliminary report on psychologist Diederik Stapel, Science has issued an “expression of concern” about one of his papers.

The 2011 article, titled  “Coping with Chaos: How Disordered Contexts Promote Stereotyping and Discrimination,” was written by Stapel and Siegwart Lindenberg, a Tilburg colleague with an appointment at the University of Groningen.

Here’s the notice, signed by Science editor Bruce Alberts: Continue reading Science expresses “concern” about Stapel paper

Stapel report finds faked data in at least 30 papers, possibly more

Our comment threads lit up today with news that the interim report on the misconduct investigation into Diederik Stapel has arrived — and what it says ain’t pretty. Continue reading Stapel report finds faked data in at least 30 papers, possibly more

“Ill communication” leads to retraction of tissue paper (sorry) for authorship issues

Like many researchers, Frank Walboomers frequently checks the scientific databases to see when his latest publications appear. He was doing so a few months ago when he came across his name on an article — “Effects of pro-inflammatory cytokines on mineralization potential of rat dental pulp stem cells” — published online in July in the Journal of Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine, that he hadn’t written.

The first author of the paper, Xuechao Yang, was a former doctoral student in Walboomers’ laboratory at Radboud University Nijmegen. It didn’t take Walboomers long to figure out what had happened: Continue reading “Ill communication” leads to retraction of tissue paper (sorry) for authorship issues

Stapel inquiry widens to the University of Groningen, University of Amsterdam

The University of Groningen (UG) has launched an investigation the conduct of Diederik Stapel, the social psychologist accused of fabricating his research.

According to a Google translation of a UG press release: Continue reading Stapel inquiry widens to the University of Groningen, University of Amsterdam