Category: by journal

“We were devastated:” Authors retract paper after realizing they had used the wrong mice

Raymond Pasek and Maureen Gannon

Longtime readers of Retraction Watch may recall a 2011 post about a research team that retracted a paper after realizing that they had ordered the wrong mice. Maureen Gannon and Raymond Pasek of Vanderbilt University contacted us earlier this week to alert us to a similar case: Their retraction, earlier this month, of a 2016 paper from American Journal of Physiology – Endocrinology and Metabolism after discovering that “a colleague from another lab had mistakenly supplied us with the wrong transgenic mouse line.”

“We strongly believe that sharing this example will encourage other researchers to do the right thing when a mistake is discovered and promote academic integrity,” they wrote. So we asked them to answer a few questions about their experience with “Connective tissue growth factor is critical for proper β-cell function and pregnancy-induced β-cell hyperplasia in adult mice,” a paper that has been cited twice, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science. 

Retraction Watch: How, and when, did you become aware of the error? Continue reading “We were devastated:” Authors retract paper after realizing they had used the wrong mice

Author “shocked” after top math journal retracts paper

One of the world’s most prestigious mathematics journals has issued what appears to be its first retraction.

The Annals of Mathematics recently withdrew a 2001 paper exploring the properties of certain symmetrical spaces.

What prompted this retraction? And why did it occur 16 years after the paper was published? Continue reading Author “shocked” after top math journal retracts paper

More notices appear for embattled Cornell food researcher

Journals have posted two corrections alongside papers by Brian Wansink, a food researcher whose work has lately come under fire.

One of the corrected papers was among the initial batch that raised eyebrows last year; after Wansink praised the productivity of one of his researchers, critics suggested four papers contained critical flaws. The questions about his work soon extended to other papers, one of which was retracted in April. That month, an internal review by Cornell University announced that Wansink made numerous mistakes, but did not commit misconduct. Wansink has pledged to reanalyze multiple papers.

One paper that was among those initially criticized has received a formal correction notice from the Journal of Product & Brand Management. The notice, which appears behind a paywall, has drawn fire from a regular critic of Wansink’s work, Jordan Anaya, who argues “this correction actually needs a correction, actually several.”

Here’s the notice for “Peak-end pizza: prices delay evaluations of quality:”

Continue reading More notices appear for embattled Cornell food researcher

Lost in translation: Authors blame a language error for wrong diagnosis

A patient’s “unusual” brain cyst excited several researchers in China so much they published a paper about it in a major journal. Soon a reader identified a glaring mistake: the authors had described the cause of the cyst incorrectly.  

A month after the paper appeared online in November 2016, the reader — a neurologist — published a letter in the journal, pointing out the incorrect diagnosis. In their response, the authors acknowledged the mistake but said it had occurred not because they had misdiagnosed the patient, but because the diagnosis had been mistranslated from Chinese to English.

The editors of Neurology retracted the paper because of the error and published a new version with the correct diagnosis on the same day, June 6.

Although we did not hear back from the paper’s two corresponding authors—Jun Guo and Guan Sun—the journal published a string of letters that chronicles the case.

Here’s the retraction (and replacement) notice:  

Continue reading Lost in translation: Authors blame a language error for wrong diagnosis

Lancet retracts (and replaces) paper a year after authors report error that changes “all numbers”

In March 2016, researchers in Switzerland and Canada published a meta-analysis in The Lancet, exploring the optimal painkiller and dose for treating pain in knee and hip osteoarthritis. Soon after, the authors were informed of an error that would change “all numbers” in a paper that may influence clinical practice.

The authors contacted The Lancet immediately, in July 2016, to inform them of the issue. Sven Trelle, the paper’s corresponding author, also told us: Continue reading Lancet retracts (and replaces) paper a year after authors report error that changes “all numbers”

Are there foxes in Tasmania? Follow the poop

Stephen Sarre, based at the University of Canberra in Australia, has made a career out of collecting and analyzing poop.

It’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it. Part of his work is designed to answer a multi-million dollar question: Is Tasmania home to foxes, a pest that carries rabies and other diseases and can ravage local wildlife? According to the Australian news outlet ABC, the Tasmanian and Australian governments have spent $50 million (AUD) on hunting foxes on the island since 2001 — even though many have debated whether they are even there.

In 2012, after analyzing thousands of fecal samples, Sarre published a paper in the Journal of Applied Ecology which boldly claimed that “Foxes are now widespread in Tasmania.” But many outside researchers didn’t buy it, and quickly voiced their criticisms of the paper, namely that there may be problems with false positives and the methodology used to analyze the samples. Recently, the journal issued an expression of concern for the paper, citing an ongoing investigation into the allegations.

Here’s the expression of concern (paywalled, tsk tsk):

Continue reading Are there foxes in Tasmania? Follow the poop

The retraction countdown: How quickly do journals pull papers?

After Tina Wenz was found guilty of scientific misconduct, how long did it take for journals to retract the problematic papers?  The answer: Between three and nine months.

In September 2016, the University of Cologne found that Wenz had committed scientific misconduct in six papers and requested they all be retracted. From that point on, the retraction clock was ticking.

We’ve explored how long it takes a journal to act over the years, and we’ve found that the time between identifying a problem to retracting the paper can vary — and sometimes last years.

In Wenz’s case, one of the papers—published in Cell Metabolism in 2009—had already been retracted in 2015. Three of the remaining five were retracted in December 2016—a 2008 paper in Cell Metabolism, a 2009 paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), and a 2009 paper in the Journal of Applied Physiology.

In January 2017, the journal IUBMB Life pulled a 2014 paper flagged in the investigation. And just over nine months after Wenz was found guilty of misconduct, the last paper—published in 2013 in Mitochondrion—has been retracted.

The most recent notice states that the University of Cologne requested the retractions, after determining that the data had been “inappropriately manipulated.”

Here’s the retraction notice in Mitochondrion:

Continue reading The retraction countdown: How quickly do journals pull papers?

Fake peer review, forged authors, fake funding: Everything’s wrong with brain cancer paper

The paper had everything: Fake peer review, forged authors, even a fake funder.

In other words, it had nothing.

A 2015 paper is the latest retraction stemming from an investigation into fake peer review by Springer, which has now netted more than a hundred papers.

According to a spokesperson at Springer: Continue reading Fake peer review, forged authors, fake funding: Everything’s wrong with brain cancer paper

How much text recycling is okay?

Are there a limited number of ways to describe the the background and methods of an experiment? Once something has been written well, and vetted by editors, is it a waste of time to rewrite it ? And if text has been reused, how should that be indicated — if at all?

These are questions we’ve asked before — and are revisiting after reviewing a pair of commentaries published earlier this year in Research Integrity and Peer Review. We’ve certainly seen our fair share of retractions due to duplication (so many we can’t cover them all) — but in one commentary, Cary Moskovitz — the Director of Writing in the Disciplines at the Thompson Writing Program at Duke University — argues that some text recycling — aka, “self-plagiarism” or duplication — is sometimes unavoidable, and, in some situations, even preferable. He told us:

Continue reading How much text recycling is okay?

“The correct values are impossible to establish:” Embattled nutrition researcher adds long fix to 2005 paper

A Cornell food researcher who has pledged to re-analyze his papers following heavy criticism of his work has issued a major correction to a 2005 paper.

The correction tweaks two tables, a figure, and the description of the methodology — and notes in two instances the correct findings are unknown, since the original data are unavailable. Andrew Gelman, a statistician at Columbia University and critic of Brian Wansink’s work, has dubbed the notice the “best correction ever.”

The paper, about whether changing the name of food influences its taste, was not among the batch of papers initially flagged by critics last year. Since then, researchers have raised additional questions about Wansink’s work; one of his papers was retracted in April. That same month, an internal review by Cornell University concluded that Wansink made numerous mistakes, but did not commit misconduct.

When we contacted Wansink about the correction, we received this statement from the Cornell Food and Brand Lab, which Wansink directs:

Continue reading “The correct values are impossible to establish:” Embattled nutrition researcher adds long fix to 2005 paper