Category: united states

UPitt investigation brings total retraction count to four for pair of cancer researchers

Journal of Biological Chemistry1An official inquiry by the University of Pittsburgh has led to two more retractions for a pair of cancer researchers, Tong Wu and Chang Han. By our count, the pair now have four retractions under their belt, all the result of the university investigation.

The Journal of Biological Chemistry published the notices earlier this month, after it was discovered the papers contained cropped panels, among other issues. Importantly, the two papers appear to even have shared some data.

One 2006 paper, “Modulation of Stat3 Activation by the Cytosolic Phospholipase A2α and Cyclooxygenase-2-controlled Prostaglandin E2 Signaling Pathway,” investigated the molecular actors in cancer growth, such as overexpression of cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2). It has been cited 34 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. Here’s the notice:

Continue reading UPitt investigation brings total retraction count to four for pair of cancer researchers

Author’s ties to NFL lead to correction for review that cast doubt on brain risk from sports

PLOS ONE

A review paper that suggested the degenerative brain disease that’s striking former football players may not be tied to contact sports has been corrected to reveal the first author spent decades working for the National Football League.

The correction appears in a review in PLOS ONE about chronic traumatic encephalopathy – the degenerative brain disease that was the basis of a $765 million settlement for former NFL players, along with a number of similar lawsuits. It fixes incorrect statements and adds conflicts of interest, including those with with first author Joseph Maroon, who spent more than 30 years working with the NFL and seven for the wrestling group the WWE.

It appears as if all the original paper declared was that Maroon was an “unpaid consultant” to the Pittsburgh Steelers. But apparently there was a lot more to it, according to the notice:

Continue reading Author’s ties to NFL lead to correction for review that cast doubt on brain risk from sports

Duke lung researcher up to seven retractions

Enviromental Health Perspectives

More journals have pulled papers co-authored by researchers Erin Potts-Kant and Michael Foster, at Duke University, bringing the total up to seven for Potts-Kant and six for Foster.

Authors were unable to replicate the experiments after “concerns about the initial data from the animal physiology laboratory” led them to reanalyze source data, according to the note in Environmental Health Perspectives. The comparison showed “potential inconsistencies in the data,” which “significantly impact the overall conclusions of the manuscript.” Similar issues appear to have felled the pair’s other papers, including the other two recent retractions in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine and the American Journal of Physiology – Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology — but in the latter case, the discrepancies don’t affect the conclusion.

Potts-Kant was arrested on embezzlement charges in 2013. Authorities alleged that she stole almost $15,000 from Duke University.

Environmental Health Perspectives posted a retraction in July, for a 2012 paper that looked at the molecular underpinnings in airways that react to ozone.

Here’s the full notice:

Continue reading Duke lung researcher up to seven retractions

“To our horror”: Widely reported study suggesting divorce is more likely when wives fall ill gets axed

home_coverA widely reported finding that the risk of divorce increases when wives fall ill — but not when men do — is invalid, thanks to a short string of mistaken coding that negates the original conclusions, published in the March issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior.

The paper, “In Sickness and in Health? Physical Illness as a Risk Factor for Marital Dissolution in Later Life,” garnered coverage in many news outlets, including The Washington Post, New York magazine’s The Science of Us blog, The Huffington Post, and the UK’s Daily Mail . 

But an error in a single line of the coding that analyzed the data means the conclusions in the paper — and all the news stories about those conclusions — are “more nuanced,” according to first author Amelia Karraker, an assistant professor at Iowa State University.

Karraker — who seems to be handling the case quickly and responsibly —  emailed us how she realized the error:

Continue reading “To our horror”: Widely reported study suggesting divorce is more likely when wives fall ill gets axed

Former FDA chemist who admitted taking bribe wins back right to work in drug industry, 20 years later

FDAMore than 20 years after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration permanently debarred a former chemist for accepting bribes — and a puzzling 17 years after he asked for a pardon after helping the agency prosecute other cases — the FDA is lifting its debarment.

In 1994, chemist David J. Brancato:

…was permanently debarred from providing services in any capacity to a person with an approved or pending drug product application…

This suggests that he wasn’t even able to work with anyone with an FDA-approved product.

The reason the debarment was lifted?

Continue reading Former FDA chemist who admitted taking bribe wins back right to work in drug industry, 20 years later

HIV postdoc faked data in published paper, 2 grants

Julia_B
Julia Bitzegeio

An HIV researcher has admitted to faking data in a published paper, a manuscript, and two grant applications, according to a notice released today by the the Office of Research Integrity (ORI).

Former postdoc Julia Bitzegeio faked data in a 2013 paper, published in the Journal of Virology, about how HIV adapts to interferon. In the paper, “the manipulation was really minor,” Theodora Hatziioannou, principal investigator of the lab at the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center (ADARC) in New York City where Bitzegeio worked, told Retraction Watch. “She just made cosmetic changes.”

The paper will be corrected, Hatziioannou said. Bitzegeio has left her lab, and her future is somewhat less clear:

Continue reading HIV postdoc faked data in published paper, 2 grants

Gut paper retracted after university review says “figures cannot be validated by original data”

IBDA biologist at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Ohio has retracted a paper from Inflammatory Bowel Diseases after a university review found the figures within it could not be “validated by original data.”

The 2010 paper, “Elevated IL-13Rα2 in intestinal epithelial cells from ulcerative colitis or colorectal cancer initiates MAPK pathway,” concerns the elevated expression and role of an inflammatory protein in colon cancer cells.

According to the notice, corresponding author and biologist Alan Levine — who recently received a $3.9 million Avant-Garde Award for HIV/AIDS Research from the National Institute on Drug Abuse — requested the retraction.

Here’s the full notice: Continue reading Gut paper retracted after university review says “figures cannot be validated by original data”

“Data fabrication and manipulation have occurred”: Taste bud paper soured by fraud

The Journal of NeuroscienceA 2013 paper on the neurological impact of flavors has been retracted from The Journal of Neuroscience. The retraction notice offers few details (which is typical for the journal), but a statement sent to us by the last author noted that an investigation at the University of Maryland “determined that data fabrication and manipulation have occurred in this study.”

“Gustatory Stimuli Representing Different Perceptual Qualities Elicit Distinct Patterns of Neuropeptide Secretion from Taste Buds” examined the relationship between flavors and neuropeptides, molecules that send signals to the brain.

Here’s the retraction notice:

Continue reading “Data fabrication and manipulation have occurred”: Taste bud paper soured by fraud

ASU professor is demoted, will correct book following “unattributed and poorly paraphrased material”

91993Matthew Whitaker at Arizona State University is revising a textbook about modern African-American history after it was found to contain “unattributed and poorly paraphrased material,” according to a statement from the author.

The revised version of the book Peace Be Still: Modern Black America from World War II to Barack Obama will include “a statement of apology and admission of error.”

As a result, Whitaker has been demoted to Associate Professor (from full Professor), costing him $20,000 per year in salary and stipend, according to The Arizona Republic. His previous salary was $163,530.

In addition,

Continue reading ASU professor is demoted, will correct book following “unattributed and poorly paraphrased material”

Retraction of monkey paper linked to problems at shuttered research institute

Veterinary Pathology.Evidence of poorly treated lab animals has led researchers to retract a 2014 article in Veterinary Pathology that explored the neurological effects of dehydration in squirrel monkeys.

The study was pulled after Frederick Wang, the former director of the New England Primate Research Center, unveiled reports of a dozen squirrel monkeys that were found dehydrated and dead in their cages or euthanized between 1999 and 2011.

Wang told the Boston Globe in April that “human error” and “inadequate animal care” might have compromised the results of the study:

Continue reading Retraction of monkey paper linked to problems at shuttered research institute