Category: united states

Neuroscience journal retracts paper for lack of “scientific soundness”

Screen Shot 2016-03-03 at 9.21.12 AMAn unusual article that considered the concept of change from a systems perspective — including change in medicine, economics, and decision-making, for instance — has, well, changed from “published” to “retracted.”

After commenters on PubPeer called the 2014 paper “gibberish” and even suggested it might be computer-generated, Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience retracted it, noting it “does not meet the standards of editorial and scientific soundness” for the journal, according to the retraction notice. The paper’s editor and author maintain there was nothing wrong with the science in the paper.

Here’s the full note for “Sensing risk, fearing uncertainty: systems science approach to change:” Continue reading Neuroscience journal retracts paper for lack of “scientific soundness”

Tribeca Film Festival pulls Wakefield vaccine film from schedule

tribecaThis isn’t a scientific paper being retracted, but given the subject, and that we led Weekend Reads with it this morning, we think it merits a post: A film by Andrew Wakefield, infamous for the now-retracted paper he co-authored in The Lancet linking autism and vaccines, has been withdrawn from the prestigious Tribeca Film Festival.

The announcement of the Tribeca lineup, which included the film, “Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe,” earlier this week was met with surprise and objections. As of yesterday, however, festival co-founder Robert De Niro defended the screening, saying he and his wife, who have a child with autism, thought it was “critical that all of the issues surrounding the causes of autism be openly discussed and examined.”

De Niro has apparently changed his mind. As per Jezebel, here is De Niro’s statement from this afternoon (Saturday): Continue reading Tribeca Film Festival pulls Wakefield vaccine film from schedule

NFL and NYT collide: Did studies on concussion rates leave out necessary data?

National Football LeagueThe National Football League failed to include data from diagnosed concussions in peer-reviewed studies, making the sport look safer than it is, allege the results of an investigation published yesterday in the New York Times. Now, the paper and the NFL are arguing over whether the studies were supposed to include every instance of head injury.

Early studies on concussion rates published in the journal Neurosurgery left out at least 100 instances of of concussions, the Times reported. The Times and the NFL disagree on the implications of studies based on an incomplete data set: Sources told the Times that it’s bad science, while the NFL explains that the studies were “necessarily preliminary.”

Yesterday afternoon, the sports league published a statement saying that the Times story “is contradicted by clear facts” and “sensationalized.” The statement argued that:  Continue reading NFL and NYT collide: Did studies on concussion rates leave out necessary data?

Chemist fighting to keep PhD asks University of Texas to pay $95k in legal fees

University of Texas

After the University of Texas postponed a hearing to determine whether it should revoke a chemist’s PhD, her lawyer has filed a motion to stop the proceedings, and requested the school pay her $95,099 in lawyer fees and expenses.

This is the second time UT has threatened to revoke Suvi Orr‘s PhD, following a 2012 retraction for a paper that made up part of her dissertation, which the school alleged contained falsified data. UT revoked her degree in 2014, only to reinstate it after she sued. The school is now trying to revoke it again, but the scheduled hearing on March 4 was postponed. Last week, her lawyer filed a motion for final summary judgment requesting that UT stop the proceedings and repay $95,099 in lawyer fees and expenses. The new motion makes a few requests:

Continue reading Chemist fighting to keep PhD asks University of Texas to pay $95k in legal fees

Poll: Should there be a way to “self-retract” for honest error?

Daniele Fanelli
Daniele Fanelli

This week in Nature, Daniele Fanelli at Stanford made an interesting proposal: Set up a system of “self-retraction” that makes it crystal clear when a paper is pulled for honest error, rather than misconduct.

Fanelli, a whose work we have frequently covered, rightly notes that honest error represents a minority of retractions — around 20%. To remove any hint that a paper contains misconduct, Fanelli proposes designating self-retractions as those where all authors sign the retraction note:

Continue reading Poll: Should there be a way to “self-retract” for honest error?

NEJM: No plan to clarify wording that led to allegations of breached confidentiality

NEJMThe New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) has no plans to change the wording of an article that led to allegations of breached patient confidentiality and caused a minor social media firestorm this past weekend, the journal told Retraction Watch.

The paragraph in question appeared in an essay by Lisa Rosenbaum chronicling the history of power morcellation, a technique to remove gynecological organs that the FDA has subjected to a “black box warning” because it can also spread tumors: Continue reading NEJM: No plan to clarify wording that led to allegations of breached confidentiality

FDA bans trial coordinator who pocketed patient funds and went to prison

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has permanently debarred a clinical trial coordinator from working on drug applications after he swapped patient stool samples for his own, and pocketed the money earmarked for patients — along with forging patient records, lab work, and doctors’ signatures.

The debarment is moot for time being — last year, Wesley McQuerry was sentenced to three years in prison for his misdeeds, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

The FDA’s debarment, effective March 18, provides more details: Continue reading FDA bans trial coordinator who pocketed patient funds and went to prison

Antifungal drug paper didn’t have institution’s approval

Authors have pulled a paper on an antifungal drug that is potentially toxic because it lacked final approval from their institution.

The study describes a patient who had experienced liver toxicity after taking voriconazole. During the study, the authors re-administered the drug to the patient using “a slow dose titration.” But their institution didn’t approve the study before it was published online.

Here’s the retraction note for “Successful Rechallenge with Voriconazole following Medication-Induced Hepatotoxicity,” published in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy.  Continue reading Antifungal drug paper didn’t have institution’s approval

Corrections chip away at asbestos paper for conflicts of interest, “misleading” citation

EBPHThe journal Epidemiology Biostatistics and Public Health has issued back-to-back corrections for a 2015 paper after the authors failed to disclose conflicts of interest with the asbestos industry and included an “erroneous citation.”

The mistaken citation was more than just a clerical error, critics argue — it undermines one of the key arguments of the paper, “Critical reappraisal of Balangero chrysotile and mesothelioma risk,” which disputes claims that an asbestos mine in northwest Italy was responsible for numerous cases of an aggressive form of cancer called mesothelioma. The authors, led by Edward Ilgren formerly of Oxford University, claim that “myriad sources” of other forms of asbestos—rather than the asbestos produced at the mine, called chrysotile—exist in the region “to account for the alleged cases.”

However, according to a recently added correction, the citation does not support one of the authors’ claims about how other forms of asbestos arrived at the mine area.

Continue reading Corrections chip away at asbestos paper for conflicts of interest, “misleading” citation

Mistaken plagiarism? Journal retracts education paper that inadvertently included others’ work

An education journal is pulling a 2014 paper about how US funding partnerships in Africa could alleviate local poverty, after the author admitted to mistakenly lifting sentences from work presented at a 2012 conference.

Author Christopher S. Collins at Azusa Pacific University took full responsibility for the plagiarism, and told us he suggested the journal retract the paper — but also proposed alternatives, such as adding the plagiarized author as a co-author, or publishing “an error sheet” that cites the material in the sentences in question.

If it’s hard to imagine how someone could plagiarize another researcher’s work by mistake, Collins explained what happened in a 900-word statement, in which he also told us how he is moving forward professionally and personally.

Here’s how some plagiarized sentences ended up in “Can funding for university partnerships between Africa and the US contribute to social development and poverty reduction?” in Higher Education, according to Collins:

Continue reading Mistaken plagiarism? Journal retracts education paper that inadvertently included others’ work