Sometimes, an Expression of Concern says a heck of a lot without — as befits the genre — coming to a particular conclusion. Take this (paywalled)* example describing a paper from a group at Huazhong Science and Technology University, Wuhan, China: Continue reading Expression of Concern reveals journal editors bending over backward to give authors benefit of the doubt
Category: by journal
This retraction stinks: Authors pull paper on pig gas
Here’s a stinky retraction.
The authors of a 2006 article in the Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences have yanked the paper — without an explanation.
The article, titled “Effectiveness of Lactobacillus plantarum strain KJ-10311 to remove characteristic Malodorous gases in piggery slurry,” came from J. D. Kim and K. M. Park. Kim appears to be a member of the journal’s editorial board, which perhaps explains why the authors were able to get away with this retraction notice: Continue reading This retraction stinks: Authors pull paper on pig gas
Journal and authors apologize “unreservedly” for distress caused to deceased child’s family by case report
Neuroskeptic featured an interesting situation over the weekend, involving a case report published in an anesthesiology journal.
The case report in Anaesthesia and Intensive Care — about a six-year-old boy with a rare neurological condition who died following administration of anesthesia — caused the boy’s parents great distress when it appeared in November.
Here’s the original case report, which requires free registration to read. It ends with this: Continue reading Journal and authors apologize “unreservedly” for distress caused to deceased child’s family by case report
Misconduct at Oxford prompts retraction of insulin paper
Cell Metabolism has retracted a 2006 article by a group of researchers at Oxford in England after an investigation concluded that the first author had committed misconduct.
The paper, “Nicotinamide nucleotide transhydrogenase: A key role in insulin secretion,” came from the lab of Frances Ashcroft, a world-renowned expert on ion channels. (We’ve written about Ashcroft’s lab before.)
According to the abstract: Continue reading Misconduct at Oxford prompts retraction of insulin paper
Former Hopkins and Pitt cancer researcher notches sixth retraction
Robert Getzenberg, a former researcher at Hopkins and Pitt, has retracted a sixth paper, this one in Cancer Research.
Here’s the notice for “Mechanistic Analysis of the Role of BLCA-4 in Bladder Cancer Pathobiology:” Continue reading Former Hopkins and Pitt cancer researcher notches sixth retraction
Bone-headed move? Authors of cancer-skeleton paper copy from paper in same journal
Climacteric is retracting a 2013 article by a group of researchers in Seoul who used data from a paper by another duo of Korean scientists also published in, you guessed it, Climacteric.
The paper, “Different bone mineral density in cervical and endometrial cancer,” came from a group of Soonchunhyang University and was published online late last year. It purported to look at the association between gynecologic cancers and bone mineral density: Continue reading Bone-headed move? Authors of cancer-skeleton paper copy from paper in same journal
Citation manipulation: Journal retracts paper because author boosted references to a journal he edits
A group of researchers have lost a paper in a computer science journal because they were apparently using its references to help the impact factor of a different journal that one of them edits.
Here’s the notice for “Impacts of sensor node distributions on coverage in sensor networks,” a paper first published in 2011 and cited four times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge: Continue reading Citation manipulation: Journal retracts paper because author boosted references to a journal he edits
“Copyright violation” fells tapeworm paper
We have a report about a case report of a “rare presentation” that doesn’t seem to be as rare as the authors would like is to think it is.
Here’s what we’re talking about:
Biotech company retracts Parkinson’s treatment study after “possible deviation from protocol”
Living Cell Technologies (LCT), a biotech company headquartered in Australia, has retracted a 2011 paper purporting to show that their product reversed Parkinson’s symptoms in rats after “being unable to reconfirm their reported results and a possible deviation from the protocol.”
LCT is developing NTCELL, which, according to their site: Continue reading Biotech company retracts Parkinson’s treatment study after “possible deviation from protocol”
Science hasn’t retracted paper that university, NSF investigators wanted withdrawn
On Saturday, we highlighted a great two-part series by Joseph Neff of the News & Observer diving into the story of “Stefan Franzen, a chemistry professor at North Carolina State University who has been trying unsuccessfully to correct the scientific record.” Today, that series became a three-part series, with a new story revealing that an investigation by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) had found “reckless” falsification in the work in question.
One of the key papers in the controversy was published by Lina A. Gugliotti, Daniel L. Feldheim, and Bruce E. Eaton in Science in 2004 and cited 125 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. (Eaton is now at the University of Colorado at Boulder.) In 2011, Nature reported on the situation: Continue reading Science hasn’t retracted paper that university, NSF investigators wanted withdrawn