As Retraction Watch readers know, criminal sanctions for research fraud are extremely rare. There have been just a handful of cases — Dong-Pyou Han, Eric Poehlman, and Scott Reuben, to name several — that have led to prison sentences.
According to a new study, however, the rarity of such cases is out of sync with with the wishes of the U.S. population:
Continue reading Vast majority of Americans want to criminalize data fraud, says new study
The authors of two environmental papers, including one about the effects of fracking on human health, have retracted them after discovering crucial mistakes.
One of the studies reported an increased level of air pollution near gas extraction sites, and the other suggested that 2010’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico contributed to air contamination.
According to the corresponding author of both papers, Kim Anderson at Oregon State University, the journal plans to publish new versions of both papers in the next few days. In the case of the fracking paper, the conclusions have been reversed — the original paper stated pollution levels exceeded limits set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for lifetime cancer risk, but the corrected data set the risks below EPA levels.
The fracking paper received some media attention when it was released, as it tapped into long-standing concerns about the environmental dangers of hydraulic fracturing (fracking), which extracts natural gas from the earth. A press release that accompanied the paper quoted Anderson as warning: Continue reading Authors retract study that found pollution near fracking sites
An obesity journal has retracted a study by authors who previously lost another paper that suggested a link between the fecal microbiome and obesity.
We first came across on the now-retracted paper in the International Journal of Obesity (IJO) in April when we reported on the authors’ other retraction in Diabetes. The 2014 paper had a corrigendum, published the same year, and also for image-related issues. Since then, however, the journal has pulled the IJO paper and its associated corrigendum at the request of the French National Institute of Agronomic Research (INRA) in Paris. Continue reading Authors who lost paper linking fecal transplants to obesity have another retracted
An erstwhile cell biologist has retracted five papers published in the Journal of Cell Science (JCS), all of which had been flagged in a recent investigation by the U.S. Office of Research Integrity (ORI).
The investigation found John Pastorino, previously a cell biologist at Rowan University in New Jersey, guilty of doctoring more than 40 images, resulting in a five-year funding ban.
The probe identified eight papers co-authored by Pastorino, six of which had already received expressions of concern (EOC) — including all of the newly retracted JCS papers. Nataly Shulga is a co-author on all eight papers.
Last week, we reported on the first of the expected retractions of the flagged papers in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.
Here are the retraction notices, which are the same for all five JCS papers: Continue reading Five more retractions for biologist with funding ban brings total to six
A paper accidentally credited the wrong researcher with providing part of an experiment.
It turns out that one of the authors supplied an expression vector to a Circulation paper about the molecular underpinnings of atherosclerosis — not the outside researcher originally thanked in the acknowledgements section.
The correction notice to the paper makes the situation sound more mysterious than it appears to be:
Continue reading Vector wasn’t a gift after all, correction notes
The author of a paper whose retraction notice says it was pulled at the behest of a company now says that wasn’t the case.
It’s a bit difficult to get this story straight: Although the retraction notice says a company complained the 2006 paper was “giving business inputs to their competitors,” the corresponding author told us no one asked him to retract the paper. Instead, he said, he was concerned about the inclusion of plant materials that belong to a previous employer, and did a “poor job” of explaining the reason for retraction. But since the results of the paper remain valid, Santosh Rajput — now a plant breeder at Dryland Genetics LLC in Ames, Iowa — told us he regrets asking to retract it:
A journal has retracted a paper by a leading diabetes researcher — who has also issued three corrections — after questions about her research were raised on PubPeer.
Kathrin Maedler — who works at the University of Bremen in Germany — corrected another paper in 2014. All of the notices are dated from 2015, and all describe issues with figures.
The ongoing comments have led Maedler to carefully look through her original data, according to a statement she emailed us: Continue reading Diabetes researcher logged 1 retraction, 3 correx, after PubPeer comments
After an AIDS vaccine researcher was sentenced to five years in prison for spiking samples, our co-founders Ivan Oransky and Adam Marcus raised an important question: Should we criminally prosecute researchers who commit misconduct? (So has Richard Smith.) In last fall’s special issue of the Journal of Information Ethics, Michael Hadjiargyrou at New York Institute of Technology, said: yes. Tell us what you think in a poll at the end of our discussion.
Retraction Watch: Did any particular event prompt this article? Continue reading Should fraudsters be criminally prosecuted?
BioMed Central has retracted a paper after realizing it shared details on the brain surgeries of four patients without their consent.
Darlene Lobel, a neurosurgeon at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, agreed to the retraction, and told us she didn’t know that she needed consent from the patients since all identifying details had been removed. The paper describes a technique for craniotomy — opening up the skull to access the brain — and included CT scans of hemorrhaging and swelling that the patients experienced, as well as other details such as their gender and age.
Here’s the retraction notice:
Continue reading Patients did not okay publishing brain surgery details
The Journal of Biological Chemistry has retracted a paper that was one of eight flagged in a recent investigation by the Office of Research Integrity (ORI). The investigation — which concluded that a biologist had falsified or fabricated more than 40 images — resulted in a five-year funding ban.
In May, the ORI announced that John Pastorino, an erstwhile cell biologist at Rowan University in New Jersey, falsified and/or fabricated eight of his published papers (and one unpublished one). Nataly Shulga is a co-author on all eight papers. Six of those eight papers had already received expressions of concern (EOC).
The first retraction to result from the investigation is one of the two published papers that had not been tagged by an EOC. Here’s the retraction notice: Continue reading 1st retraction for biologist who doctored 40+ images, received funding ban