The Lancet has retracted a study of Novartis’ blood pressure drug valsartan (Diovan) that has been subject to an investigation following the retraction of a related study earlier this year.
Continue reading Lancet retracts Jikei Heart Study of valsartan following investigation
A group of dermatology researchers from Egypt who passed around a psoriasis paper like a bottle of sunscreen at the beach have been burned (sorry) by a journal that caught them in the act.
Acta Dermatovenerologica Alpina, Pannonica et Adriatica is retracting the 2009 article “Association of cytokine gene polymorphisms with psoriasis in cases from the Nile Delta of Egypt” after discovering that they were far from the first publication to print the paper.
Here’s the retraction notice (it’s a pdf): Continue reading Too much skin in the game, as duplications force retraction of psoriasis paper
The journal Colloids and Surfaces B: Biointerfaces has retracted a 2011 paper by a group of researchers in India who misappropriated — and then manhandled — a pair of images from a previously published article by other scientists.
The paper, “Synthesis and characterization of chitosan and grape polyphenols stabilized palladium nanoparticles and their antibacterial activity,” was written by authors from various institutions in Tamil Nadu, and appeared online in December 2011 and in print the following April. It has been cited three times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.
Here’s the abstract: Continue reading When two words colloid: “copied and manipulated” figures prompt retraction of nanoparticle paper
The Journal of of Inequalities and Applications has retracted a paper for unspecified “ethical problems.”
Here’s the notice for “Strong Limiting Behavior in Binary Search Trees:” Continue reading Math paper retracted because it “contains some ethical problems”
Synthesis and Reactivity in Inorganic, Metal-Organic, and Nano-Metal Chemistry is retracting three articles for duplication — redundancy the authors, chemical engineers at Islamic Azad University, in Shahreza, Iran, appear to have gotten around by reviewing their own manuscripts. But, if they did say so themselves, those papers were really something!
Here’s the retraction notice for two of the papers, both of which appeared in 2012 and which were cited seven times and once, respectively, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge:
Continue reading Chemistry papers retracted for “lack of objectivity:” The authors did their own peer review
The author of a review article on diabetes has been forced to retract the paper after it emerged that he failed to properly credit some of the text — an omission we generally associate with the word plagiarism.
The article, “Colonic flora, probiotics, obesity and diabetes,” was written by Paul Marik, of Eastern Virginia Medical School, and appeared in July 2012 in Frontiers in Endocrinology. It has been cited once, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.
Here’s the retraction notice:
Continue reading Frontiers papers on GMO debate, diabetes retracted for improperly cited text
The humble chickpea has become one of the world’s most promising cash crops, so it’s no surprise that efforts are underway to make it even more humble, er, profitable, through genetic manipulation.
But one group of scientists made hummus out of their approach when they botched what evidently was a key element of a figure in their 2011 paper in Plant Cell Reports (PCR).
The article, “High-efficiency Agrobacterium-mediated transformation of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) and regeneration of insect-resistant transgenic plants,” came from researchers at the National Botanical Research Institute in Lucknow, India. Cited three times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge, it purported to find that: Continue reading Figure error forces retraction of transgenic chickpea paper
What do you do when new experiments show that you interpreted the data from your old experiments the wrong way?
Some scientists might just shrug and sweep those errors — and their previous papers — under the rug. But when it happened to Jeffery Kelly, of the Scripps Research Institute, and his colleagues, they decided to retract their earlier work.
Here’s the abstract of their new paper (we bolded a few sentences for emphasis): Continue reading Doing the right thing: Researchers retract two studies when they realize they misinterpreted data
The Journal of Assisted Reproduction and Genetics has retracted a 2010 paper by a group of Iranian researchers after concluding that the authors may have misrepresented both the nature of the study and the originality of the work.
The article, “Can fresh embryo transfers be replaced by cryopreserved-thawed embryo transfers in assisted reproductive cycles? A randomized controlled trial,” came from Abbas Aflatoonian, Homa Oskouian, Shahnaz Ahmadi and Leila Oskouian at Yazd Research & Clinical Center for Infertility at Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Science. According to the abstract: Continue reading Journal retracts IVF paper over data concerns
A group of psychiatric researchers in Norway has lost their 2013 paper in BMC Research Notes on the effects of antipsychotic medications on the brain after discovering that they’d botched their imaging analyses.
The article, “Does changing from a first generation antipsychotic (perphenazin) to a second generation antipsychotic (risperidone) alter brain activation and motor activity? A case report,” came from a trio of scientists at the University of Bergen and Haukeland University Hospital, also in Bergen. According to the abstract of the paper, which was published last May:
Continue reading When 1 equals 2, the result is a retraction