Category: plos one

Spanish veterinary researcher under suspicion of creating “ghost” author, fabricating data

via Wikimedia

The Spanish press has picked up on the story of a prominent veterinary scientist in that country who has been accused of research misconduct.

According to El Pais, the researcher, Jesús Ángel Lemus, whose areas of interest include the effects of toxins on birds, ran into trouble in December when colleagues complained to the Ethics Committee of the Higher Council for Scientific Research about the reproducibility of his results and other problems. That triggered an inquiry by the CSIC into Lemus’ body of work, an investigation that, evidently, could not find a body.

Per El Pais (courtesy of Google Translate): Continue reading Spanish veterinary researcher under suspicion of creating “ghost” author, fabricating data

Author who took responsibility for errors in retracted PNAS paper cites it…in error

via Wikimedia

One of the issues we’ve touched on at Retraction Watch is what happens once papers are retracted. A few studies have found that other authors continue to cite those studies anyway, without noting their withdrawal from the literature. A more recent paper found that retractions are linked to a dramatic decline in citations (see last half of post). And we’ve reported on one case in which the authors of a retracted study decided not to cite it at all when they republished their findings elsewhere.

But it seems unusual for an author to cite his or her own retracted work without noting it had been retracted. That’s what happened in a recently published PLoS ONE paper, “Loss of Secreted Frizzled-Related Protein 4 Correlates with an Aggressive Phenotype and Predicts Poor Outcome in Ovarian Cancer Patients.” The second to last paragraph of that paper ends: Continue reading Author who took responsibility for errors in retracted PNAS paper cites it…in error

Corrections in PLoS One, Nature Medicine for Zhiguo Wang, and details about Montreal Heart Institute investigation

via Wikimedia

PLoS One and Nature Medicine have issued corrections for papers by Zhiguo Wang, the former Montreal Heart Institute researcher who resigned in September following an investigation into image manipulation in his lab. 

In September, PLoS One told us that they were investigating the paper. Here’s the text of the correction for “Transcriptional and Post-Transcriptional Mechanisms for Oncogenic Overexpression of Ether À Go-Go K+ Channel:” Continue reading Corrections in PLoS One, Nature Medicine for Zhiguo Wang, and details about Montreal Heart Institute investigation

Concerns over language in PLoS One autism paper lead to brief withdrawal and correction

via Wikimedia

On September 28, PLoS One published a paper, “The Level and Nature of Autistic Intelligence II: What about Asperger Syndrome?”

But rather than celebrate another publication for her CV, one of the authors, Michelle Dawson, of Centre d’Excellence en Troubles Envahissants du Développement de l’Université de Montréal (CETEDUM) in Montréal, wasn’t happy. The PLoS One editors had made some changes she didn’t like. And she let everyone on Twitter know: Continue reading Concerns over language in PLoS One autism paper lead to brief withdrawal and correction

Potti retraction tally grows to six with a withdrawal in PLoS ONE, and will likely end up near a dozen

Anil Potti and his former Duke colleagues have retracted a sixth paper, this one in PLoS ONE.

According to the retraction notice for “An Integrated Approach to the Prediction of Chemotherapeutic Response in Patients with Breast Cancer,” the withdrawal was prompted by the retraction of a Nature Medicine paper that formed the basis of the PLoS ONE study’s approach: Continue reading Potti retraction tally grows to six with a withdrawal in PLoS ONE, and will likely end up near a dozen