Category: by journal

Resveratrol fraud case update: Dipak Das loses editor’s chair, lawyer issues statement refuting all charges

Das, via UConn

Many Retraction Watch readers will now be familiar with the case of Dipak Das, the resveratrol researcher about whom the University of Connecticut issued a voluminous report yesterday — summary here — detailing 145 counts of data fabrication and falsification. This has been a fast-moving story, so we wanted to highlight a number of updates to our original post, and offer a few more.

First, we have confirmed with publisher Mary Ann Liebert this morning that Das has been relieved of his duties as co-editor in chief of Antioxidants & Redox Signaling. He had shared that post with Chandan Sen, and his name as been removed from the masthead of that journal. Here’s a statement from the publisher: Continue reading Resveratrol fraud case update: Dipak Das loses editor’s chair, lawyer issues statement refuting all charges

A mega-correction, but no retraction, in the Journal of Cell Science

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 We’ve seen errata notices that correct so many different errors, it’s hard to believe the paper shouldn’t have been retracted.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

Eye of the needle? Paper about camels gets rejected, then published, then retracted

photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/bysheribeari/ via Flickr

If there’s one thing worse than having your paper rejected by a journal, it’s having it retracted. But usually a paper has to be accepted before it’s published and withdrawn.

Not so for a study from the United Arab Emirates, “Detection and genotyping of GB virus-C in dromedary camels in the United Arab Emirates,” published in 2010 in Veterinary Microbiology.

The editors of the journal ruminated — hey now! is this thing on? — on the paper,  only to give it the thumbs down. But come to find out, it got published anyway. Thus, the following retraction notice, which appeared online last month: Continue reading Eye of the needle? Paper about camels gets rejected, then published, then retracted

Potti and colleagues retract 2008 JAMA paper

Anil Potti‘s retraction count is now eight with the withdrawal of a 2008 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

Here’s the notice, which appeared online in JAMA sometime yesterday: Continue reading Potti and colleagues retract 2008 JAMA paper

Authors retract Journal of Cell Science study after realizing they were using the wrong gene constructs

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

JCO retracts article from major French cancer group over apparent plagiarism

David Khayat

The Journal of Clinical Oncology (JCO) has retracted a November 2011 editorial by a group of French cancer researchers, including David Khayat, the former head of that country’s National Cancer Institute, over what appears to be fairly extensive plagiarism.

Here’s the notice for the article, “Lymphocyte Infiltration in Breast Cancer: A Key Prognostic Factor That Should Not Be Ignored:” Continue reading JCO retracts article from major French cancer group over apparent plagiarism

Journal retracts heart stem cell paper (and pulls no punches) over image fraud

Some retractions beg for a kick of sand in the face, and others do the kicking. Here’s an example of what Charles Atlas might have written had he been a journal editor concerned with research integrity.

Experimental Biology and Medicine, the official journal of the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine, has retracted a 2010 article by a group of stem cell scientists in China with an unfortunate affinity for a particular figure—one they’d used in a previous publication, only with a different description.

Here’s the notice for the paper, “Isolation and characterization of multipotent progenitor cells from the human fetal aorta wall,” which was cited five times before it was retracted, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge: Continue reading Journal retracts heart stem cell paper (and pulls no punches) over image fraud

Cancer issues expression of concern about two Henschke I-ELCAP lung cancer screening papers

The journal Cancer has issued an Expression of Concern about two lung cancer screening papers long dogged by doubt.

Last April, The Cancer Letter and The New York Times jointly published an investigation into the International Early Lung Cancer Action Program (I-ELCAP) run by Claudia Henschke and David Yankelevitz. Other researchers had already criticized the design and conclusions of that trial, but as the investigation noted, an October 2008 review of the study found that the researchers couldn’t find 90 percent of the subjects’ consent forms, an ethical no-no that jeopardizes as many as 135 papers.

Two papers published in Cancer, in 2000 and 2001, are among those studies, according to the notice (links added), which credits the Times and The Cancer Letter and notes that the journal has referred the case to Federal investigators: Continue reading Cancer issues expression of concern about two Henschke I-ELCAP lung cancer screening papers

Hopkins scientists retract prostate cancer screening study at center of 2009 lawsuits

The authors of a study in Urology that was at the center of two 2009 lawsuits brought by a company that funded the work have retracted the paper.

The idea behind the research — by Robert Getzenberg and colleagues at Johns Hopkins — was to find an alternative to the prostate specific antigen (PSA) test, which many urologists recommend, but which many groups — including the US Preventive Services Task Force — find wanting. The work gave rise to a company, Onconome, Science reported in a 2009 story about the lawsuits: Continue reading Hopkins scientists retract prostate cancer screening study at center of 2009 lawsuits

A tsunami of plagiarism in Serbia, but hardly any retractions

Today, we have the pleasure of presenting a guest post from Mico Tatalovic, who wrote in October aboutretractions in journals in his home country, Croatia. Here, he describes what appears to be an alarming rate of plagiarism in Serbian journals.

A report for the Serbian science ministry by the Centre for Evaluation in Education and Science (CEON) found that whopping 11% of scientific journal articles by Serbian authors published in English language but in Serbian journals were plagiarised. The proportion was similar across all sciences (natural, medical, technical and social).

Apart from widespread plagiarism, they also found that 0.35% of the articles in the the Serbian citation index and journal database (SCIndeks) were published twice in identical form, often in the same journal.

Forgetful editors who still track manuscripts ‘manually’ may forget to mark them as ‘published’, which can result in duplicates in the same journal, according to Pero Sipka, director of CEON.

Interestingly, editors and publishers were less likely to deem a paper plagiarised than were outside analysts, according to the report, and not all editors and publishers openly cooperated.

Given the shocking amount of plagiarism you might also expect to see a flurry of retractions, but it’s not so.

Continue reading A tsunami of plagiarism in Serbia, but hardly any retractions