Category: by journal

So how often does medical consensus turn out to be wrong?

In a quote that has become part of medical school orientations everywhere, David Sackett, often referred to as the “father of evidence-based medicine,” once famously said:

Half of what you’ll learn in medical school will be shown to be either dead wrong or out of date within five years of your graduation; the trouble is that nobody can tell you which half–so the most important thing to learn is how to learn on your own.

Sackett, we are fairly sure, was making an intentionally wild estimate when he said “half.” [See note about these strikethroughs at bottom of post.]  But aA fascinating study out today in the Archives of Internal Medicine gives a clue as to the real figuresuggests that he may have been closer than any of us imagined. Continue reading So how often does medical consensus turn out to be wrong?

Authors retract Nature Medicine cystic fibrosis paper after some results don’t hold up

The authors of a Nature Medicine study published online in September about the behavior of white blood cells in cystic fibrosis have retracted the paper, saying that further experiments suggested the original results were unreliable. According to the notice: Continue reading Authors retract Nature Medicine cystic fibrosis paper after some results don’t hold up

“Representative” image in liver paper leads to retraction

The journal International Immunology has retracted a 2007 article, “Amelioration of hepatic fibrosis via beta-glucosylceramide-mediated immune modulation is associated with altered CD8 and NKT lymphocyte distribution,” by a group of Israeli liver researchers whose manuscript included a composite image that didn’t quite call itself such.

The study, by scientists at Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem, purported to show that a soy-derived compound could reduce liver disease in mice. It has been cited 17 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. The journal is published by Oxford and the Japanese Society for Immunology.

From the notice: Continue reading “Representative” image in liver paper leads to retraction

Second retraction by Harvard group studying cannabinoids, this one in JBC

Last week, we reported that a group of Harvard researchers had retracted a paper in Blood for “multiple instances of duplicate (redundant) publication of data, text, and images that are nonessential to the paper.” The retraction notice referred to a paper in the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC):

The redundancies are between the above-cited Blood article and the following 12 November 2010 article, published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC): Jiang S, Zagozdzon R, Jorda MA, et al. Endocannabinoids are expressed in bone marrow stromal niches and play a role in interactions of hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells with the bone marrow microenvironment. J Biol Chem. 2010;285(46):35471-35478.

Today, we learned that the JBC paper has also been retracted. The notice, as we’ve come to expect from the JBC, is unhelpful: Continue reading Second retraction by Harvard group studying cannabinoids, this one in JBC

Another G&D paper retracted, this one for faked data

Genes & Development (G&D) — a journal published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory that published only its second retraction in its 24-year history a few weeks ago, has published another. The study, “PRMT1-mediated arginine methylation of PIAS1 regulates STAT1 signaling,” was published in 2009 and has been cited 22 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

The retraction notice places the blame squarely on first author Susanne Weber, who was a graduate student at the time the study was published and signed the retraction. The G&D notice, in the July 1, 2011 issue, reads: Continue reading Another G&D paper retracted, this one for faked data

Four mysterious retractions in the JBC for a group whose PI recently passed away

The Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC) has retracted four studies done in a Mount Sinai School of Medicine lab whose principal investigator died last month. The studies, by the late Maria Diverse-Pierluissi and colleagues, were as follows:

According to a Mount Sinai release, Diverse-Pierluissi died on May 7 of this year. The retractions are dated June 17, and all say the same thing: Continue reading Four mysterious retractions in the JBC for a group whose PI recently passed away

“Nonessential” duplication leads to retraction of Blood cannabinoid paper

The journal Blood has retracted a paper from a group of prestigious Harvard researchers after the article, which appeared in January 2011, was found to have multiple instances of material — text, data and other elements — that had appeared in a previous publication from several of the authors.

The article was titled “Cannabinoid receptor 2 and its agonists mediate hematopoiesis and hematopoietic stem and progenitor cell mobilization.” Its authors included Hava Avraham, a noted cancer researcher, and Jerome Groopman, known for his New Yorker articles about medicine and, scientifically, for his work on cannabinoids and cancer, among other areas.

According to the retraction notice: Continue reading “Nonessential” duplication leads to retraction of Blood cannabinoid paper

Unprecedented? Journal yanks transcendental meditation paper 12 minutes before it’s scheduled to publish

There’s a highly unusual situation brewing at the Archives of Internal Medicine. At 3:48 Eastern time on Monday, 12 minutes before the embargo lifted on the June 28 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine, the following message went out from its press office:

The editorial office of the Archives of Internal Medicine has made the decision not to publish,  “Stress Reduction in the Secondary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease: A Randomized Controlled Trial of Transcendental Meditation and Health Education in African Americans,” by Schneider et al, and the accompanying Commentary by Mehta and Bairey Merz that was to post Online First at 3 PM central time today.

The decision is to allow time for review and statistical analysis of additional data not included in the original paper that the authors provided less than 24 hours before posting.  We apologize for the short notice, but hope you will understand and not run your stories on this study today.

We asked Archives of Internal Medicine editor Rita Redberg when the paper might be published: Continue reading Unprecedented? Journal yanks transcendental meditation paper 12 minutes before it’s scheduled to publish

That sounds familiar! Education paper plagiarism caught — inadvertently — by author

The other day we wrote about a case of plagiarism in an education journal serving the Whole Schooling community. One of the questions we always ask editors and writers victimized by plagiarists is how they learned about the theft. The answer typically involves some version of “we were reading a new paper and saw some of our own words/figures/tables on the page.”

But in this instance, the story’s somewhat more interesting. We’ll let co-author Ana-Lisa Gonzalez tell it: Continue reading That sounds familiar! Education paper plagiarism caught — inadvertently — by author

Whole schooling paper retracted after discovering that it was largely lifted

The International Journal of Whole Schooling has retracted a 2007 article for what it calls “substantial” plagiarism.

The article, titled “The relations between parenting and adolescent motivation,” was written by Theiienhuong N. Hoang,  an education researcher at California State Polytechnic University in Pomona. The aim of the paper:

Parenting practices that influence or teach adaptive motivational and achievement outcomes are an aspect of a student’s success that are in need of consideration. This study will examine motivational outcomes, as predicted by parenting practices that may influence student behavior.

The purpose of this study is to expand upon the existing research on the relation between parenting practices and motivation.

By expand, it seems she meant restate.

According to the June 16 notice: Continue reading Whole schooling paper retracted after discovering that it was largely lifted