A former postdoctoral researcher at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York has received a five-year funding ban after an investigation concluded that they had falsified data underlying more than 50 images.
According to a report released today by the Office of Research Integrity (ORI), Zhiyu Li falsified Continue reading Ex-Mount Sinai postdoc who falsified 50+ images earns 5-year funding ban
An autism researcher is retracting a paper she shared with the director of a New York institute, following a misconduct investigation.
In 2011, suspicions raised by peer reviewers triggered the investigation into several papers by Xiaohong Li at the Institute for Basic Research in Developmental Disabilities (IBR) in New York. The probe concluded in 2013 that there was no evidence of misconduct, but the committee recommended the institute review all relevant papers. This additional review led to the latest retraction, the result of problems with figures which “underpin the conclusions of the study.”
This is Li’s third retraction, all of which she shares with W. Ted Brown, the director of IBR. The pair lost two articles in 2013.
Here’s the retraction notice for “Alteration of astrocytes and Wnt/beta-catenin signaling in the frontalcortex of autistic subjects,” published in the Journal of Neuroinflammation:
Continue reading Institute director loses third paper following investigation
A former postdoctoral researcher at the University of Pittsburgh has issued his first retraction after an investigation by the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) concluded he had falsified and/or fabricated data in two published papers.
The ORI investigation into the work of Kenneth Walker, determined that he had
falsified and/or fabricated quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) data to demonstrate a statistically significant or “trend” of statistical difference in the expression of renal or bladder urothelium and muscle developmental markers between control and experimental (mutant) mice, when there was none.
The ORI report said that Walker has agreed to retract or correct a 2013 PLOS ONE paper and a 2015 study published in American Journal of Physiology – Renal Physiology (AJPRP).
Here’s the first retraction notice, issued by AJPRP: Continue reading 1st retraction for ex-Pitt postdoc who admitted to doctoring data
A contentious case over whether a fired ecologist deserves whistleblower protection is playing out in Kansas, and the National Science Foundation (NSF) has once again weighed in.
For the second time, the NSF has told the researcher, Joseph Craine, that he does not qualify for protection as a whistleblower after he was fired from Kansas State University (KSU) for sharing misconduct allegations with a journal editor.
Craine initially asked the NSF for whistleblower protection status in 2014, arguing that he had been retaliated against for making misconduct allegations to the journal Ecology. The NSF denied Craine’s claim, but Craine appealed to federal court, which found the NSF’s reasoning opaque and remanded the case back to the agency. On June 24, the NSF’s General Counsel Lawrence Rudolph issued a new 11-page letter that lays out the basis for its decision: Continue reading War over whistleblower protection for Kansas ecology prof wages on
Against the author’s wishes, a journal has retracted a paper about chemtrails, a long-standing conspiracy theory about the dangers of cloud trails released from jet planes.
After the paper was scrutinized on librarian Jeffrey Beall’s blog and social media last week, Frontiers in Public Health issued an expression of concern (EOC). The paper was published June 30, and retracted yesterday, in a relatively rare case of rapid action by a journal.
Last year, we reported on another retraction of a paper about chemtrails by the same author — J. Marvin Herndon, a geophysicist and self-described “independent researcher” at the Transdyne Corporation in San Diego, California.
Here’s the retraction notice: Continue reading Author loses 2nd paper on supposed dangers of chemtrails
A journal has published an expression of concern (EOC) for a 2016 paper providing evidence for a long-standing conspiracy theory about the dangers of cloud trails from jet planes.
A similar paper by the same author was retracted last year by another journal.
Both papers focused on the “chemtrails” emitted from jet planes, which conspiracy theorists have long believed contain toxic coal fly ash rather than harmless ice crystals, as the government claims. According to a press release about the 2016 paper, released by author J. Marvin Herndon, a geophysicist and “independent researcher” at the Transdyne Corporation in San Diego, California, the paper presents evidence the chemtrails contain coal fly ash, linked to a number of health problems.
But many people disagree with the findings — Jeffrey Beall, a librarian at the University of Colorado, Denver, criticized the paper on his blog.
Here’s the EOC, published today by Frontiers in Public Health: Continue reading Controversial chemtrails paper flagged by journal
It’s rare for the U.S. government to revoke grants – but it happened recently, according to a report this week by the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting (KyCIR). As the report notes, in March the government revoked $914,000 in funding awarded to Susan Harkema at the University of Louisville in Kentucky, after discovering problems with a study that examined whether the muscle relaxant baclofen helps paralyzed patients move on treadmills. (The university has denied it lost any government funding; a representative of Louisville Public Media, which houses the KyCIR, is standing by the story.) All of this has not been news to Steve Williams, a physician now based at the University of Washington, who has been raising questions about the study for years.
Retraction Watch: What was your role in the study in question, that’s now been defunded by the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILIRR)?
Steve Williams: I was the study physician who evaluated patients for enrollment.
RW: According to the KyCIR, the study began recruiting patients in 2012. When did you start getting concerned about how it was being conducted? Continue reading Doctor who blew whistle on defunded study speaks
A cancer journal has retracted a paper co-authored by a researcher who falsified or fabricated data in 11 studies, according to an investigation by the Office of Research Integrity (ORI).
In December 2015, an ORI probe into the work of Girija Dasmahapatra concluded that he had
…duplicated, reused, and/or relabeled Western blot panels and mouse images and claimed they represented different controls and/or experimental results…
Dasmahapatra left the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in July 2015.
Here’s the retraction notice, issued in April 2016: Continue reading 1st retraction for cancer researcher who doctored data in 11 studies
A research fellow at Harvard has lost his PhD from a university in Singapore after being found guilty of falsifying data, and his former group leader’s contract has been terminated by his institution.
But that’s not the whole story. This tangled mess involves not only the Harvard researcher, Sudarsanareddy Lokireddy, and his former boss, Ravi Kambadur at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore, but an as-yet unnamed colleague of theirs who, we’re told, has admitted making up data in three papers, on which Lokireddy and Kambadur are co-authors. Bear with us as we walk you through this tale.
Two of those papers have been retracted by The Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC); one in Molecular Endocrinology has yet to be pulled. Kambadur, who held joint appointments at the NTU and the Agency for Science, Research and Technology (A*STAR) in Singapore, has now had his contract terminated at both institutions. Continue reading Harvard researcher’s PhD revoked, former group earns three more retractions
How can academic journals ensure the integrity of the data they publish? For one journal, the key is looking deeply at statistics, which revealed crucial problems in the research of recent high-profile fraudsters such as Anil Potti. Editor-in-chief of the Journal of Management, Patrick Wright from the University of South Carolina, recently authored an editorial about how he’s taken those lessons to heart — and why he believes retractions don’t always hurt a journal’s reputation.
RW: Can you take us through the changes in the editorial policy of your journal? Continue reading “We should err on the side of protecting people’s reputation:” Management journal changes policy to avoid fraud