Category: freely available

Three more Bulfone-Paus retraction notices out, in Journal of Immunology

Silvia Bulfone-Paus

The retraction notices for papers by Silvia Bulfone-Paus continue to appear. Yesterday, the Journal of Immunology posted notices for these three previously accepted retractions by the researcher, work at whose Borstel Centre lab is under investigation for misconduct.

We wrote what? Breast cancer paper falls to rogue author

Something was fishy at China Normal University. According to the journal Anti-Cancer Drugs, a 2010 paper by researchers at the Beijing school — “3,30′-Diindolylmethane negatively regulates Cdc25A and induces a G2/M arrest by modulation of microRNA21 in human breast cancer cells” — turned out to have suffered from an unfortunate anomaly. According to the retraction notice: Continue reading We wrote what? Breast cancer paper falls to rogue author

Georgia (well, the Medical College there, anyway) on our minds for a mysterious retraction

We’re watching a case which appears to involve more than meets the eye.

Molecular Endocrinology has retracted a 2010 study by researchers at the Medical College of Georgia. According to the Spartan retraction notice (we added a link): Continue reading Georgia (well, the Medical College there, anyway) on our minds for a mysterious retraction

And that’s 14: More (and more) Mori retractions, as Japanese cancer journal pulls three papers

Naoki Mori

The steady drip-drip-dripping sound you hear from the cancer literature these days comes from the stream of retractions involving studies by Naoki Mori, the now jobless scientist whose work on cancer viruses appears to be evaporating before our eyes.

Cancer Science, which used to be called the Japanese Journal of Cancer Research,  has retracted three more of Mori’s papers, each of which, according to the journal, contained multiple unreliable images. That brings the tally of retractions involving Mori’s articles to 14 by our count, an impressive number by any measure. Mori has more than 50 papers to his name, however, so it’s possible that the number of retractions will grow.

Here are the latest retractions: Continue reading And that’s 14: More (and more) Mori retractions, as Japanese cancer journal pulls three papers

Inability to reproduce Dutch grad student’s data prompts two retractions from the cancer lit

We are watching an intriguing case out of the Netherlands, involving a young researcher whose dubious results have led to the retraction of a pair of papers.

The retracted articles, which appeared in 2008 in Cancer Research and the British Journal of Cancer, come from the lab of the prominent Dutch scientist Ed Roos, of the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam. Both papers addressed the actions of certain chemokine receptors — molecules on cell surfaces that interact with blood proteins involved in the immune response — on the behavior of tumor cells.

The first author on each paper was Joost Meijer, at the time a graduate student in Roos’ shop.

The retraction notices contain essentially the same information, although in the case of the BJC article — “Effect of the chemokine receptor CXCR7 on proliferation of carcinoma cells in vitro and in vivo” — the letter is quite personal. Dated Jan. 4, 2011, it reads: Continue reading Inability to reproduce Dutch grad student’s data prompts two retractions from the cancer lit

Clinical Infectious Diseases retracts antibiotic guidelines after posting uncorrected version

A few days after Clinical Infectious Diseases published a set of guidelines for using antibiotics in patients with cancer and dangerously compromised immune systems, we noticed that they had retracted the paper. The Medline notice read: Continue reading Clinical Infectious Diseases retracts antibiotic guidelines after posting uncorrected version

Sixth Bulfone-Paus retraction accepted

Silvia Bulfone-Paus

A journal has accepted the sixth retraction of a paper co-authored by Silvia Bulfone-Paus, the Research Centre Borstel announced late last week. Borstel has been investigating allegations that two of Bulfone-Paus’s former postdocs manipulated images.

The paper, in the Scandinavian Journal of Immunology, is titled Continue reading Sixth Bulfone-Paus retraction accepted

Researcher found to have deceived colleague — and perhaps sabotaged others — decides to study plagiarism

Jatinder Ahluwalia apparently did some pretty bad things as a researcher at University College London. As we reported in November, in an investigation related to a Nature retraction, a research misconduct panel at UCL found that:

Ahluwalia “renumbered the files to deceive [another coauthor,] Professor [Lucie] Clapp as to the results of his patch clamping experiments,” adulterated his reagents so his results would look better, and sabotaged his colleagues’ work.

The panel said that the file renumbering charge was proven “beyond reasonable doubt,” and “that on the balance of probabilities it was highly confident”  that the other two charges had been proven. It also concluded unanimously that Ahluwalia had acted alone.

So he knows from research misconduct, in several of its forms. There’s one that he doesn’t seem to have engaged in, however, and that’s the one he’s decided to study in his new position at the University of East London: Continue reading Researcher found to have deceived colleague — and perhaps sabotaged others — decides to study plagiarism

Resurrection? Paper about Jesus and the flu remains online, not marked as retracted

In August, we reported on the retraction of a paper in Virology Journal about whether a woman allegedly cured by Jesus Christ had the flu or some other ailment. The original paper was published on July 21, 2010. On August 11, after a flurry of criticism from various bloggers, the journal’s editor, Robert Garry, apologized for publishing it in a comment. On the 13th, the journal published a retraction notice.

But as an eagle-eyed Retraction Watch reader has pointed out, the original paper, and its abstract, both remain online, without any suggestion that the paper was retracted. We found that puzzling, so we called Garry, of Tulane’s department of microbiology and immunology. Continue reading Resurrection? Paper about Jesus and the flu remains online, not marked as retracted

EurekAlert retracts press release, and a Guardian reporter sanctioned by EurekAlert reports on it

Cross-posted from Embargo Watch

EurekAlert has withdrawn a press release after realizing that it contained unsupported statements about climate change. As Suzanne Goldenberg of The Guardian reports:

An online news service sponsored by the world’s premier scientific association unwittingly promoted a study making the false claim that catastrophic global warming would occur within nine years, the Guardian has learned.

The study, by an NGO based in Argentina, claimed the planet would warm by 2.4C by 2020 and projected dire consequences for global food supply. A press release for the Food Gap study was carried by EurekAlert!, the news service operated by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) , and the story was picked up by a number of international news organisations on Tuesday.

Read the rest of Goldenberg’s story. It’s quite illuminating.

EurekAlert posted a statement that reads, in part: Continue reading EurekAlert retracts press release, and a Guardian reporter sanctioned by EurekAlert reports on it