united states – Page 132 – Retraction Watch

Hopkins scientists retract prostate cancer screening study at center of 2009 lawsuits

The authors of a study in Urology that was at the center of two 2009 lawsuits brought by a company that funded the work have retracted the paper.

The idea behind the research — by Robert Getzenberg and colleagues at Johns Hopkins — was to find an alternative to the prostate specific antigen (PSA) test, which many urologists recommend, but which many groups — including the US Preventive Services Task Force — find wanting. The work gave rise to a company, Onconome, Science reported in a 2009 story about the lawsuits: Continue reading Hopkins scientists retract prostate cancer screening study at center of 2009 lawsuits

Plagiarism kills weed paper

The January 2012 issue of Biosystems Engineering has a commendably thorough retraction notice regarding a case of plagiarism in its pages.

The notice, regarding the article “Advanced techniques for Weed and crop identification for site specific Weed management,” by Karan Singh, K.N. Agrawal, and Ganesh C. Bora, of North Dakota State University, speaks for itself: Continue reading Plagiarism kills weed paper

Blood retracts stem cell paper from Amy Wagers’ Harvard lab after 14 months of concern

More than 14 months after Blood issued a notice of concern about a paper by a Harvard stem cell scientist and her former post-doc, the journal has retracted the article.

Here’s the notice for the paper, “Osteolineage niche cells initiate hematopoietic stem cell mobilization,” by Shane Mayack and Amy Wagers: Continue reading Blood retracts stem cell paper from Amy Wagers’ Harvard lab after 14 months of concern

Another shoe drops as authors retract PNAS chronic fatigue syndrome-virus paper

Just days after the retraction of a paper in Science that had claimed a link between chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and the virus XMRV, the authors of a similar paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) have retracted theirs.

The PNAS paper, “Detection of MLV-related virus gene sequences in blood of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome and healthy blood donors,” was published online on August 23, 2010 by Shyh-Ching Lo, Harvey Alter, and colleagues. Here’s the notice, which PNAS says will be available on its site sometime this week: Continue reading Another shoe drops as authors retract PNAS chronic fatigue syndrome-virus paper

Chronic fatigue syndrome-XMRV paper retracted by Science, completely this time

The editors of Science have fully retracted a study they published in 2009 alleging a link between chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and the virus XMRV.

The notice begins with a nod to the reasons that the paper has already been partially retracted:

Science is fully retracting the Report “Detection of an infectious retrovirus, XMRV, in blood cells of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome” (1). Multiple laboratories, including those of the original authors (2), have failed to reliably detect xenotropic murine leukemia virus–related virus (XMRV) or other murine leukemia virus (MLV)–related viruses in chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) patients. In addition, there is evidence of poor quality control in a number of specific experiments in the Report. Fig. 1, table S1, and fig. S2 have been retracted by the authors (3).

It also refers to evidence of image manipulation that was described by blogger Abbie Smith and then reported in the Chicago Tribune:

Continue reading Chronic fatigue syndrome-XMRV paper retracted by Science, completely this time

PNAS retracts two papers on osmolytes after researchers discover crucial measurement errors

A good carpenter never blames his tools. But for scientists, sometimes machines do go bad–with disastrous results. Consider the following:

The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has retracted two papers by researchers in the United Kingdom and the United States after the scientists learned that their results were based largely on a problem with their highly sensitive instruments.

Continue reading PNAS retracts two papers on osmolytes after researchers discover crucial measurement errors

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

Lab squabble leads to retracted correction over authorship in British Journal of Haematology

Here’s a he said-he said that left one author with a publication, then nothing, and us scratching our heads.

In March 2010, the British Journal of Haematology issued a rather straightforward correction regarding a 2007 article by a group of researchers from ~~Kansas~~ Kansas City, Missouri.

The glitch? The manuscript evidently left out an author:

In Iyamu et al (2007), the list of authors was incorrectly published and should have read:

Efemwonkiekie W. Iyamu, Syed Jamal, Chiazotam Ekekezie and Gerald M. Woods

Or maybe not. The journal is now retracting the correction: Continue reading Lab squabble leads to retracted correction over authorship in British Journal of Haematology

New retraction sheds light on Medical College of Georgia vascular biology case

In late January, we wrote a post about a retraction in the journal Molecular Endocrinology involving work from the lab of Stephen M. Black, of the Vascular Biology Center at at the Medical College of Georgia.

At the time, we didn’t know much. The notice was pretty thin sauce, although it hinted at “significant concerns with the data,” and we were led to believe that the first author of the article, Neetu Sud, a post-doc in Black’s lab, might have been implicated in those concerns. Because Black’s lab was working with substantial amounts of NIH funding, the prospect of an investigation by the Office of Research Integrity seemed likely.

Now we have a little more to go on. The American Journal of Physiology: Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology has retracted another article by Sud and Black. The paper, titled “Protein kinase Cδ regulates endothelial nitric oxide synthase expression via Akt activation and nitric oxide generation,” appeared in 2008 and included a third author, Stephen Wedgwood, of Northwestern University. It has been cited 10 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

Here’s the notice: Continue reading New retraction sheds light on Medical College of Georgia vascular biology case