Category: by journal

Journal flags paper over allegations it used competitors’ text, plasmids

MGGA journal has issued an expression of concern (EOC) for a paper on a common crop virus after the authors were accused of using competitors’ unpublished text and plasmids.

Investigations by the journal and the involved institutions — the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, where the paper’s authors are based, and North Carolina State University (presumably, where the accusing group is from) — were inconclusive, the notice states.

So the editor flagged “Sequences enhancing cassava mosaic disease symptoms occur in the cassava genome and are associated with South African cassava mosaic virus infection” with an EOC:

Continue reading Journal flags paper over allegations it used competitors’ text, plasmids

Retract – and replace? JAMA may expand use of this tool

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Annette Flanagin

Remember last week, when JAMA replaced an article about the impact of moving homes on kids’ mental health after discovering some errors in the analysis? We’re going to see more of these somewhat unusual notices coming out of JAMA journals in the near future – the JAMA Network journals may   issue more “retract and replace” decisions for papers, in which it pulls an old version of an article and replaces it with a corrected one. But it’s not a correction — we spoke with Annette Flanagin, the Executive Managing Editor for The JAMA Network, to learn more. 

Retraction Watch: We’ve spotted three “retract and replace” notices in JAMA journals, including one issued earlier this year for a highly cited paper that contained “pervasive errors,” and the one last week about the impact of moving on kids’ mental health. How do you decide whether a paper will be retracted and replaced, or just retracted? Continue reading Retract – and replace? JAMA may expand use of this tool

Dental paper pulled for “wrong content with serious consequences”

Clinical Oral InvestigationsAn article on how missing teeth affect chewing was — well, pulled — when someone noticed a few errors. The journal later published a corrected version.

The retraction for “Chewing ability in an adult Chinese population” appeared in Clinical Oral Investigations in 2012, but we’re sharing it with you now because the notice contains some remarkable language:

This article has been withdrawn due to wrong content with serious consequences such as danger to people’s health.

Last author Nico H.J. Creugers, who works at Radboud University Medical Center in the Netherlands, told us: 

Continue reading Dental paper pulled for “wrong content with serious consequences”

Seventh retraction appears for cancer researcher who sued PubPeer commenters

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Fazlul Sarkar

Fazlul Sarkar, who sued PubPeer commenters for criticizing his work, has logged two more retractions, bringing his total to seven.

The two retractions appear in the Journal of Cellular Physiology, and follow five others released last week by another Wiley journal, Journal of Cellular Biochemistry. All notices mention an investigation at Wayne State University, where Sarkar is on the faculty.

Here’s the notice for “Activated K-Ras and INK4a/Arf Deficiency Promote Aggressiveness of Pancreatic Cancer by Induction of EMT Consistent With Cancer Stem Cell Phenotype:” Continue reading Seventh retraction appears for cancer researcher who sued PubPeer commenters

JAMA authors retract (and replace) paper about moves and kids’ mental health

JAMAJAMA authors have retracted — and replaced — a 2014 paper about the mental health effects of household moves on kids, after they found errors while completing an additional analysis.

The original paper concluded that in “families who moved out of high-poverty neighborhoods, boys experienced an increase and girls a decrease in rates of depression and conduct disorder,” according to a press release issued by the journal along with the paper (which also got some press attention from Reuters). But part of that conclusion is wrong.

The authors write in a notice for “Associations of Housing Mobility Interventions for Children in High-Poverty Neighborhoods With Subsequent Mental Disorders During Adolescence” that:

Continue reading JAMA authors retract (and replace) paper about moves and kids’ mental health

Researcher suing PubPeer commenters earns 5 retractions following investigation

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Fazlul Sarkar

An investigation at Wayne State University has prompted five retractions for a scientist who is suing PubPeer commenters after they criticized his work on the site.

The investigation into Fazlul Sarkar and his co-authors found that the papers contain images that were “inappropriately manipulated” or “inappropriately re-used and re-labeled.” All five retraction notices are from the Journal of Cellular Biochemistry.

Here’s the retraction notice for “Concurrent inhibition of NF-κB, cyclooxygenase-2, and epidermal growth factor receptor leads to greater anti-tumor activity in pancreatic cancer:

Continue reading Researcher suing PubPeer commenters earns 5 retractions following investigation

Internet trolling paper published email without consent; retraction sparked lawsuit threat

De Gruyter

When a paper was retracted earlier this year with an opaque notice, we set out to figure out why. We’re still not entirely clear of the reason, but we’ve uncovered one aspect of the paper that raised objections from another researcher: The paper, on internet trolling, included an email he sent without his permission.

The retraction sparked our interest, both because of the journal’s opaque reasoning — saying the paper “does not fit” with the journal — and because the author (Jonathan Bishop, CEO of an independent media company called Crocels) has taken preliminary steps to sue the publisher of the Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.

Here’s some of what happened before all that took place: When mechanical engineer Filippo Salustri discovered the paper included a screenshot of an email he sent to a listserv — along with his email address — his university (Ryerson in Canada) asked the publisher to retract the paper. De Gruyter re-reviewed the paper and retracted it, issuing the vague notice.

Salustri explained that the paper contains a figure with a picture of an email message:
Continue reading Internet trolling paper published email without consent; retraction sparked lawsuit threat

Nutrition researcher loses two more papers after misconduct findings come to light

R K Chandra, self-proclaimed father of nutritional immunology (from www.drrkchandra.com)
R K Chandra, self-proclaimed father of nutritional immunology (from www.drrkchandra.com)

The self-proclaimed “father of nutritional immunology,” Ranjit Kumar Chandra, has lost two more papers following the release of a misconduct investigation report by his former employer, Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN).

The report was released last year after Chandra lost his libel suit against the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC). The newly retracted papers were both published in Nutrition Research. On one, the author is listed as “Amrit Jain,” who is allegedly Chandra, as well.

Here’s the retraction notice for the article by Amrit Jain: 

Continue reading Nutrition researcher loses two more papers after misconduct findings come to light

Figures questioned online were manipulated, says Malaysia investigation

The image that excited twitter: Figure 6 from the Scientific Reports paper
The image that set Twitter abuzz: Figure 6 from the Scientific Reports paper, in which every cell in each stage of cell death appeared to be an exact copy.

Many figures in four papers by a research team in Malaysia contain duplication or manipulation, a university committee has found, calling for multiple retractions.

We learned about issues with three of the papers, including one in Scientific Reports, earlier this week when they were the talk of Twitter. As journals issued expressions of concern, and an expert wondered how the papers passed peer review at all, the first author, a researcher at the University of Malaya (UM), denied allegations of duplication.

UM was alerted to allegations of misconduct in the Scientific Reports paper last Saturday, and according to a statement published today:

Continue reading Figures questioned online were manipulated, says Malaysia investigation

Fake email for corresponding author forces neuro journal to retract paper

Cellular and Molecular NeurobiologyA chair of a neurobiology department in China has requested the retraction of a paper on which he was unwittingly listed as the lead and corresponding author.

How could a corresponding author — you know, the person with whom the journal corresponds about the paper — be added without their consent? It seems that a fraudulent email account was involved in this case. The address listed for Cheng He, a researcher at the Second Military Medical University in Shanghai, didn’t belong to him, said a spokesperson for Springer.

According to the retraction notice for “Identification of the Interaction Between the Human Homologue of the Arabidopsis COP9 Signalosome Subunit 7a and Olig1:”

Continue reading Fake email for corresponding author forces neuro journal to retract paper