Anil Potti resurfaces with job at North Dakota cancer center

Anil Potti, the former Duke cancer researcher who has now retracted or corrected 18 papers amidst investigations into his work, is now working at a Grand Forks, North Dakota, cancer center.

The Grand Forks Herald reports that Potti has worked at the Cancer Center of North Dakota since May. His new boss, William Noyes, told the paper that Continue reading Anil Potti resurfaces with job at North Dakota cancer center

Seeing red (wine): Another retraction for Dipak Das, making count 13

Today’s Retraction Watch, to paraphrase Sesame Street, is brought to you by the number 13.

Earlier, we reported on several retractions from Diederik Stapel that bring his total to that number, and now we’ve learned about number 13 for Dipak Das. Das is of course the UConn researcher who was found to have committed 145 counts of misconduct in his studies of the red wine compound resveratrol and other subjects.

Here’s the notice, from The Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry, for “Resveratrol, a unique phytoalexin present in red wine, delivers either survival signal or death signal to the ischemic myocardium depending on dose:” Continue reading Seeing red (wine): Another retraction for Dipak Das, making count 13

Hypertension retracts paper over data glitch

The anticipation of having one’s blood pressure measured can cause it to spike.

So, evidently, can errors in data processing — on a national scale.

Hypertension, a journal published by the American Heart Association, has retracted a 2011 paper looking at the implications of blood pressure management guidelines after the authors discovered they had bungled the merging of their data files.

As the notice explains: Continue reading Hypertension retracts paper over data glitch

Authors retract nutrition review that plagiarized deceased researcher

A pair of authors have retracted a paper in Nutrition Reviews after it became clear that parts were plagiarized from work by a nutritionist who had died in an accident just weeks after writing the material.

The retraction reads in full: Continue reading Authors retract nutrition review that plagiarized deceased researcher

Mizzou investigating faculty as one heart beats as two in plagiarized — and now retracted — cardiac paper

The American Journal of the Medical Sciences has retracted a 2012 article on premature heartbeats by a group of authors in Missouri who took “significant” liberties with an earlier paper in Heart.

The offending paper, “Ventricular ectopic beats: an overview of management considerations, “was written by Amar Jadhav and colleagues at the University of Missouri School of Medicine, in Columbia, and published in the February issue of the AJMS.

According to the retraction notice: Continue reading Mizzou investigating faculty as one heart beats as two in plagiarized — and now retracted — cardiac paper

University of Nebraska investigating work of lung researchers as journal issues Expression of Concern

The American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine (AJRCCM) has issued an Expression of Concern about a paper published online earlier this year, after concerns about the data prompted an investigation by the University of Nebraska.

Here’s the notice: Continue reading University of Nebraska investigating work of lung researchers as journal issues Expression of Concern

Family Practice affair: Diabetes paper pulled for redundancy, which journal calls “honest error”

Family Practice has retracted a 2009 review article on diabetes whose author had published a similar — in spots identical — paper two years earlier in another journal. We think the notice is nine-tenths solid, but there’s a part at the end that raises an important question about how much, or little, editors should do to accommodate the embarrassments of their authors.

The notice:

Continue reading Family Practice affair: Diabetes paper pulled for redundancy, which journal calls “honest error”

Psychological Science retracts a Sanna paper, citing lawyers, COPE…and Retraction Watch

In April 2011, we praised Psychological Science for its handling of a retraction. At the time, we went as far as to call the retraction notice a “model” of transparency for other journals to follow.

Well, they evidently took that compliment seriously, according to a new retraction notice for a paper by Lawrence Sanna. Sanna left Michigan under a cloud a few months ago after another scientist found his data statistically implausible, as Ed Yong reported in Nature.

The newly retracted paper, “Construing collective concerns: Increasing cooperation by broadening construals in social dilemmas,” was published in 2009 while Sanna was still at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Here’s a sample from the abstract: Continue reading Psychological Science retracts a Sanna paper, citing lawyers, COPE…and Retraction Watch

Prostate cancer researcher who retracted two studies at center of lawsuit departs Hopkins

Robert Getzenberg, the Johns Hopkins prostate cancer researcher who has recently retracted two papers involved in work he was sued over, has left the university, Retraction Watch has learned.

Getzenberg, who directed the Research Laboratories at the Hopkins’ Brady Urological Institute, has been working on an alternative to the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test. In 2009, he — along with Hopkins and Pitt, his former employer — was sued by a company that funded his work, Science magazine reported at the time. The suits were eventually settled for an undisclosed amount, and Getzenberg and his colleagues have now retracted two papers, one in Urology and one in The Prostate, as we’ve reported. Continue reading Prostate cancer researcher who retracted two studies at center of lawsuit departs Hopkins

Plagiarism topples paper co-authored by top tamoxifen scientist

Expert Opinion on Pharmacotherapy has retracted a 2011 paper for plagiarism by two authors, one of whom, V. Craig Jordan, is a leading researcher on the class of drugs known as selective estrogen receptor modulators, or SERMs, and is credited with discovering the anti-tumor properties of the breast cancer drug tamoxifen.

Jordan, who is scientific director at the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center at Georgetown University, appears to have been unaware of the offense when the paper was published. Here’s the notice: Continue reading Plagiarism topples paper co-authored by top tamoxifen scientist