The fake peer review retraction count continues to mount.
Elsevier is retracting nine papers from five journals because fake email addresses for reviewers were provided during submission of the original manuscripts. According to a statement from the publisher: Continue reading Elsevier retracting nine papers for fake peer review
Despite acknowledging in its own pages that two recent high-profile retraction notices turned out to not tell the whole story, Nature will not be updating the original retraction notices, the journal tells us.
We checked in with Nature after it published two Brief Communications Arising regarding two high-profile retractions of papers describing a new method of reprogramming cells to a pluripotent state. (This method is also known as stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency, or STAP.)
We were particularly intrigued by the journal’s plans for the retractions, published in 2014, when an editorial in the September 23 issue about the new BCAs (here and here) suggested the wording of the notices might be problematic: Continue reading Nature: No plans to change wording of STAP retractions
We’ve found two recent retractions and an expression of concern for Joachim Boldt, former prominent anesthesiologist and currently Retraction Watch leaderboard’s 2nd place titleholder. He now has 94 retractions.
One of the retracted articles contains falsified data, along with a researcher who didn’t agree to be a co-author, according to an investigation by the Justus Liebig University Giessen, where Boldt used to work. The expression of concern is regarding some questionable data. The other new retraction is actually one of 88 papers that a group of editors agreed to retract back in 2011, after they were “unable to verify” approval by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) for the studies.
One of those 88 papers, we’ve discovered, has still has not been retracted. According to an editor at the journal, they haven’t removed it because one of Boldt’s co-authors has threatened them with legal action. Continue reading Boldt’s retraction count upped to 94, co-author takes legal action to prevent 95th
A 13th retraction has been published for Jesús Ángel Lemus, the Spanish veterinary researcher whose work colleagues have had trouble verifying.
This paper was pulled for similar reasons as his other retractions: After retrying the experiments in two independent labs, fellow authors were “unable to arrive to any sound conclusion about the validity of his analyses.”
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences posted the notice September 16, three years after the paper received an expression of concern.
The retraction notice, signed by every co-author but Lemus, reads:
Continue reading 13th retraction issued for Jesús Ángel Lemus
This week’s issue of Science includes a retraction of a highly cited paper about manipulating the current in a string of molecules with a magnet, after an investigation by the co-authors revealed “inappropriate data handling” by the first author.
According to the note, the co-authors’ suspicions arose when they tried to follow-up on the data. Following a “thorough investigation,” they concluded that first author Rabindra N. Mahato had handled the data in such a way that they could no longer trust the conclusions. In the end, Mahato agreed to the retraction.
Here’s more from the note: Continue reading Authors pull Science paper on molecular wires for “inappropriate data handling”
An environmental journal is retracting an article about the risks of pesticides to groundwater after determining it contained data that “the authors did not have permission (implicit or explicit) to publish.”
According to the retraction note in Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, the paper said the data came from a non-author’s PhD thesis, but it’s not there. Those mysterious data were used to validate a model for pesticide exposures, described in an excerpt from the abstract: Continue reading Authors “did not have permission” to use pesticide data
A group of researchers in Hong Kong and China have lost a pair of papers on liver transplantation after concerns were raised about the “origin of images” in the two studies.
The articles appeared in the American Journal of Transplantation in January and February of 2006, and came from the lab of S. T. Fan, of the University of Hong Kong. When the authors were asked about the images, they “were unable to satisfactorily mitigate the concerns.”
According to this bio from the journal Hepatobiliary Surgery and Nutrition, Fan: Continue reading Image issues force retraction of liver transplant papers
We have discovered several errata for a New York City urologist, including in one paper that previously inspired one of our favorite headlines.
The latest development is pretty straightforward: Ashutosh K. Tewari has issued errata to multiple papers in two journals that note changes to some data points. But the backstory has some twists and turns, so you may need to read this one carefully.
We’ll start with the paper that might be familiar to eagle-eyed readers, on incontinence after surgery: “Effect of a Risk- Grade of Nerve-sparing Technique on Early Return of Continence After Robot-assisted Laparoscopic Radical Prostatectomy.” It was published in European Urology in 2012, and has been cited 21 times, according Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. Here’s the correction note (paywalled — tsk, tsk):
Continue reading Urologist makes what he calls “clarifications” to multiple articles
The Cochrane Library has withdrawn a 2013 systematic review on zinc’s ability to fight the common cold.
Cochrane often marks reviews “withdrawn” once new evidence emerges that renders them out of date — but in this case, the review was flagged while the editors investigate issues “regarding the calculation and analysis of data.”
Here’s the notice.
Continue reading Cochrane withdraws review on zinc for colds for data concerns
A common ailment known as duplication has taken down a paper about a common fungus and asthma.
Aspergillus spores are often ubiquitous yet harmless, but can irritate people whose lungs aren’t in top working order. Duplication, on the other hand, is more universally deadly. The editors of The Pan African Medical Journal told us that, in addition to the retraction, there were personal consequences for the authors: Continue reading Journal bans authors of duplicated asthma paper