Authors’ financial disclosures can be a thorny issue for scientific journals. There’s often confusion over just what should be listed as a conflict of interest, and when relationships are revealed after papers are published, lack of disclosure sometimes leads to corrections.
For example, the Journal of Cell Science recently published this: Continue reading Coming clean: A major figure in cardiology publishes a lengthy conflict of interest correction in JAMA
In our 2011 year-end post, we promised to keep
…an eye on what may be an emerging trend: The mega-correction. We’ve seen errata notices that correct so many different errors, it’s hard to believe the paper shouldn’t have been retracted. It’s unclear what this means yet, but watch this space for coverage of more examples.
We’ve found another example in the Journal of Cell Science, “Immunobiology of naïve and genetically modified HLA-class-I-knockdown human embryonic stem cells,” originally published in September 2011. The correction begins with what turns out to be a bit of an understatement: Continue reading A mega-correction, but no retraction, in the Journal of Cell Science
What do you do when it turns out the materials you used in your successful experiment weren’t actually the materials you thought they were?
If you’re Peter Zammit, of King’s College London, and colleagues, you retract a 2008 paper in the Journal of Cell Science. Here’s the notice, for “B-catenin promotes self-renewal of skeletal-muscle satellite cells:” Continue reading Authors retract Journal of Cell Science study after realizing they were using the wrong gene constructs
Ten days ago, we reported on the dismissal of Zhiguo Wang, a Montreal Heart Institute researcher who had already retracted two papers because of image manipulation. At the time, an official said the institute had requested three more retractions, but when we asked which three papers, we were told:
As written in the press release, the MHI has requested the retraction of three additional scientific articles. We will not be able to confirm the name of the scientific articles and/or publications until confirmation of the retractions.
The first of those three has now appeared, in the Journal of Cell Science, for the 2007 paper, “The muscle-specific microRNAs miR-1 and miR-133 produce opposing effects on apoptosis by targeting HSP60, HSP70 and caspase-9 in cardiomyocytes.” According to the retraction notice — which is unfortunately behind a paywall (see update at end): Continue reading Third retraction from dismissed Montreal cardiology researcher Zhiguo Wang appears