Category: united states

Misconduct forces retraction of health behavior paper

j behav medA pair of psychology researchers at West Virginia University have lost their 2013 article in the Journal of Behavioral Medicine after one of the authors was found to have cooked the data.

The paper, “Preference for immediate reinforcement over delayed reinforcement: relation between delay discounting and health behavior,” was written by Shane Melanko and Kevin Larkin. It examined whether people who place less importance on the future were also less likely to adopt healthy behaviors, which come with delayed benefits. Melanko, then a doctoral candidate under Larkin, was evidently at one time a psychology student of some promise.

That promise might go unfulfilled. According to the retraction notice: Continue reading Misconduct forces retraction of health behavior paper

Matlab mixup sinks Journal of Neuroscience paper

journal of neuroscienceA team of neuroscientists at University of Oregon and the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) have retracted a paper from The Journal of Neuroscience after realizing their analytic code contained an error.

The authors state in the notice that their conclusion remains accurate after correcting the mistake in the program Matlab. However, the paper — which examined the role of neuronal oscillations in working memory — still contained “some findings that we no longer believe to be robust.”

It’s a very useful notice: Continue reading Matlab mixup sinks Journal of Neuroscience paper

Exclusive: St. Jude Children’s suspends enrollment in cancer trials over toxicity concerns

st judesSt. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis has temporarily halted enrollment in six bone marrow transplant trials due to concerns over how side effects were being identified in medical records, Retraction Watch has learned.

According to a source familiar with the trials, five of the six being suspended were all enrolling children with blood cancers who lacked a matching donor. During the trials, doctors took bone marrow from a parent — not a perfect match — and manipulated the cells before transplant to make them more capable of killing cancer, and less likely to be rejected.

Four trials, a few of which were scheduled to enroll more than 100 children, are being led by Brandon Triplett. Two are led by Mari Dallas, according to the source. Genzyme and the U.S. National Cancer Institute are listed as collaborators. Both Dallas and Triplett work under bone marrow transplant department chair Wing Leung.

We reached out to Scientific and Comprehensive Cancer Center Director Richard Gilbertson, who referred us to PR firm Rubenstein Public Relations. They sent us the following statement: Continue reading Exclusive: St. Jude Children’s suspends enrollment in cancer trials over toxicity concerns

Forged author list blows up explosives contamination paper

WWII poster for Ravenna Ordnance Plant, via Wikipedia
WWII poster for Ravenna Ordnance Plant, via Wikipedia

An environmental journal has retracted a paper on a technology that helps degrade explosives released into soil, because the first author never got the permission of his “co-authors” — oh, and used data that were “illegally obtained,” according to one of the slighted co-authors.

According to the EPA, more than 30 sites around the country are contaminated by decommissioned explosives, including weapons plants and army depots. A major source of the pollution was workers washing out old bombs into “evaporation lagoons” and then burning the resulting sludge.

The site used for the retracted paper was Ravenna Army Ammunition Plant, a decommissioned weapons factory that stored explosive waste in unlined landfills. According to the EPA, “open burning was also a common practice.”

The problems with the paper in Water, Air & Soil Pollution were uncovered after the head of the company, University of Georgia (UGA) professor Valentine Nzengung, found the paper on ResearchGate. He discovered that first author Chunhui Luo had used (now out-of-date) data without permission, and added Nzengung’s name to the paper without his knowledge. The other author is another UGA professor, Walter O’Niell, who told us he was also not informed about the paper.

Nzengung gave us further details via email: Continue reading Forged author list blows up explosives contamination paper

Chem paper retracted because “a significant amount of data” was wrong

Jced_coverThe editors of ACS’s Journal of Chemical and Engineering Data have sunk a paper on halogenated alkanes after realizing that “a significant amount” of the data was “inaccurate,” thereby “invalidating” the paper.

Here’s the notice for “Influence of Solvent Nature on the Solubility of Halogenated Alkanes” (which has only been cited twice, according to Google Scholar): Continue reading Chem paper retracted because “a significant amount of data” was wrong

Figure dupe sinks cell bio paper

cellular biohemTulane researchers Tong Wu and Chang Han, who have been anonymously accused of figure duplication in the past, have now finally lost a paper for that reason.

The frequent plagiarism tipster Juuichi Jigen (a pseudonym) set up a blog in 2012 alleging that the pair inappropriately reused images in six other papers, though none of those have been retracted. The recent notice, issued at the end of January by the Journal of Cellular Biochemistry, states that the figure duplication was confirmed by the University of Pittsburgh’s Office of Research Integrity. Han, the first author, was at UPitt when the paper was published in 2008, though she moved to join Wu at Tulane in 2009.

Here’s the notice for “Regulation of Wnt/ß-Catenin Pathway by cPLA2α and PPARδ“: Continue reading Figure dupe sinks cell bio paper

Fourth retraction appears for cancer researcher Anil Jaiswal

cancer research 1113The hits keep coming for University of Maryland researcher Anil Jaiswal.

The latest retraction for the cell biologist is in Cancer Research, for a 2007 paper about ways in which the cell tries to protect the tumor suppressor p53. Like the first Jaiswal retraction we covered, the latest notice specifically taps figure duplication as the cause of death, “as a result of an error.” The other two retractions gave no explanation for the withdrawal.

Here’s the notice: Continue reading Fourth retraction appears for cancer researcher Anil Jaiswal

Authors retract 2007 PNAS paper on aging due to figure’s “unintentional anomalies”

pnas 2515The authors of a 2007 PNAS paper that provided molecular details for how calorie restriction may act on Sir2 enzymes to extend life are now retracting their research after discovering a figure was compromised by “several unintentional anomalies in the background image.”

According to study author David W. Piston at Vanderbilt University, first author Qinghong Zhang cut and pasted images together to beautify a figure showing how a form of sugar affects the expression of SIRT1, the mammalian version of the Sir2 enzyme: Continue reading Authors retract 2007 PNAS paper on aging due to figure’s “unintentional anomalies”

“Genuine error” sees expression of concern for vision loss paper

elsevierA duplicated figure has resulted in an expression of concern for a paper in the American Journal of Pathology on a treatment for ocular neovascularization, which causes vision loss.

According to the notice, the corresponding author, David Shima, now at University College London, brought his concern to the journal. He called it a “genuine error” and stated that all the findings had been reproduced.

Unfortunately, Shima claimed the original data are missing, because the institution that owned the information — Eyetech Research Center — has “since gone through several acquisitions.”

Ocular neovascularization occurs when growth signals in the eye stimulate the creation of many new blood vessels. Over time these blood vessels break, causing bleeding and scarring that limits vision. This is called “wet” macular degeneration.

The scientists found that giving patients drugs to limit two different growth factors at the same time is more effective than one at stopping the progression of AMD. This combination method is in stage three clinical trials, though with different drugs than the authors used here.

The paper, published in 2006, has been cited 130 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. Here’s the EoC for “Inhibition of Platelet-Derived Growth Factor B Signaling Enhances the Efficacy of Anti-Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor Therapy in Multiple Models of Ocular Neovascularization”:

Continue reading “Genuine error” sees expression of concern for vision loss paper

Unspecified questions earn central line study an expression of concern

ajicThe American Journal of Infection Control has issued an expression of concern for a paper looking at ways to reduce infections associated with central venous catheters, or central lines.

The catheters are placed directly into a large vein and end close to the heart, allowing long-term access for medication or fluid administration. According to the CDC, infections associated with central lines cause thousands of deaths and cost billions of dollars every year.

Here’s the abstract for “Comparison of central line-associated bloodstream infection rates when changing to a zero fluid displacement intravenous needleless connector in acute care settings“: Continue reading Unspecified questions earn central line study an expression of concern