Category: freely available

Prostate cancer paper retracted after investigation can’t review original image

1.coverAn article about how a COX-2 inhibitor (celecoxib) inhibits growth of prostate cancer in rats is being retracted after the authors were unable to provide an investigation committee at New York University with the backup they were asking for.

When the paper was published in 2003, first author Bhagavathi Narayanan worked at the Institute for Cancer Prevention in New York (also known as the American Health Foundation). But when the institute went broke the next year — thanks partly to lavish salaries and offices, as the New York Post reported —  the authors claim they could no longer obtain back up for an image in the paper, once it was questioned years later by NYU, where Narayanan is now based.

Here’s the retraction note, published in Clinical Cancer Research:

Continue reading Prostate cancer paper retracted after investigation can’t review original image

Inventors have a dust up over air sampling device

graphic_amt_cover_homepageTo climate scientist Pieter Tans, a “novel” air sampling device in a recent paper looked a little too familiar. Specifically, like a device that he had invented — the AirCore, which he calls a “tape recorder” for air.

The journal editors came up with a unique solution to the disagreement that followed, which the editor in chief called “rather unclear:” The journal ran an editorial in which both Tans and the authors of the paper contend that their device is unique.

The paper in question, “A novel Whole Air Sample Profiler (WASP) for the quantification of volatile organic compounds in the boundary layer,” was published in Atmospheric Measurement Techniques. It has not been cited, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

It now bears a note, in bold and red: “Please read the Editorial Note before accessing the paper.” 

Here’s how the editorial laid out the case:

Continue reading Inventors have a dust up over air sampling device

Four retractions follow Swedish government findings of negligence, dishonesty

242915_1uu_logoA Swedish ethical review board has censured two biologists and their employer, Uppsala University, for events related to “extensive image manipulations” in five papers published between 2010 and 2014. The case has led to criticism from an outside expert — who brought the allegations to Uppsala — over the current system in Sweden for handling such investigations.

Four of the papers have been retracted, and the authors have requested a correction in the fifth.

After an eight-month investigation, in September the government-run Expert Group for Scientific Misconduct at the Central Ethical Review Board in Stockholm, Sweden, concluded that Uppsala professor Kenneth Söderhäll — who has published more than 200 papers — and lecturer Irene Söderhäll acted “negligently” and “dishonestly” by Continue reading Four retractions follow Swedish government findings of negligence, dishonesty

We have a new record: 80 years from publication to retraction

cover_2015_51We have a new record for the longest time from publication to retraction: 80 years. It’s for a case report about a 24-year-old man who died after coughing up more than four cups of what apparently looked — and smelled — like pee.

According to the case report titled “Een geval van uroptoë” published in 1923, an autopsy revealed that the man had a kidney that was strangely located in his chest cavity. A case of pneumonia caused the kidney to leak urine into the space around his lungs, leading to the perplexing cough.

If that sounds too crazy to be true, you’re right: This man never existed. The case was retracted in 2003. (Yes, we are a little late to this one — it recently popped up in one of our Google alerts.)

A write-up by the editors of the Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde — that translates to “Dutch Journal of Medicine” — explains that the strange case was a fake (on the fifth page of this PDF, in English):

Continue reading We have a new record: 80 years from publication to retraction

The Big (Retraction) Short: Securitized loans paper may get change of venue

J financeA paper on the securitized loan industry’s pricing practices was pulled from the Journal of Finance, but may be appearing in another journal.

The Journal of Finance issued a notice of withdrawal, for “Who Facilitated Misreporting in Securitized Loans?” by John M. Griffin and Gonzalo Maturana, but does not say why it was taken out.  Griffin’s web site notes that the paper is to be published in the Review of Financial Studies.

Here’s the note, dated Sept. 23: Continue reading The Big (Retraction) Short: Securitized loans paper may get change of venue

Cancer study pulled when published without supervisor’s consent

turkish jThe Turkish Journal of Medical Sciences has retracted a paper after concerns surfaced from a researcher who claims to have supervised the research but was not listed as a co-author.

The first author completed the research — which explored the use of epigenetic alterations as potential early signs of cancer — as part of her master’s degree, under the supervision of Muy-Teck Teh at the Barts & The London School of Medicine & Dentistry. When Teh contacted the journal to say he had not consented to the publication, Ayesha Umair claimed she had paid for the research herself.

Here’s the retraction note for “Quantitative study of epigenetic signature in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma,” which tells us more about the dispute: Continue reading Cancer study pulled when published without supervisor’s consent

Nature retracts paper six years after it was flagged for fraud

cover_natureNature retracted a paper on protein structures today, six years after an investigation at the University of Alabama identified several structures that were “more likely than not falsified and/or fabricated” by one of the authors.

The paper came under scrutiny soon after it was published in 2006. A letter published in Nature that same year pointed out “physically implausible features in the structures it described.” That triggered the investigation at the University of Alabama, the result of which was published in 2009, identifying “nine publications related to the same protein structures that should be retracted from various scientific journals.” Everything was pinned on last author H.M. Krishna Murthy, who the investigation determined was “solely responsible for the fraudulent data.”

A 2009 Nature news article on the investigation declared that the “fraud is the largest ever in protein crystallography.”

We’re not sure what took Nature so long to retract the letter, titled “The structure of complement C3b provides insights into complement activation and regulation.” Here’s the note, which explains that not all the authors agreed to the retraction:

Continue reading Nature retracts paper six years after it was flagged for fraud

Third retraction appears for Leiden researcher fired in 2013

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A researcher who was fired from Leiden University Medical Center in 2013 for fraud has notched a third retraction, following an investigation by her former workplace.

When Leiden fired Annemie Schuerwegh, they announced two retractions of papers that contained manipulated data. This third retraction — the last, according to a spokesperson for the center  — is for “a discrepancy between the data reported in the article and the original collected data,” per the note.

The 2011 paper, “Mast cells are the main interleukin 17-positive cells in anticitrullinated protein antibody-positive and -negative rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis synovium” published in Arthritis Research & Therapy, suggests the source of a protein involved in rheumatoid arthritis. It has been cited 51 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

Here’s the retraction note:

Continue reading Third retraction appears for Leiden researcher fired in 2013

Voinnet’s notice count grows, as he notches his 18th correction

home_coverOlivier Voinnet, a high-profile plant scientist at ETH Zurich, has earned a mega-correction. It wrapped up a rough year for the biologist, which included his seventh retraction, and a CNRS investigation that found evidence of misconduct.

This latest correction, to a paper on the mechanisms behind RNA silencing in Arabidopsis, was published in RNA. The 2007 paper has been cited 101 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. The corrigendum modifies three figures in total.

The notice is long, so we’re not going to post the whole thing here. The first error in “Transitivity in Arabidopsis can be primed, requires the redundant action of the antiviral Dicer-like 4 and Dicer-like 2, and is compromised by viral-encoded suppressor proteins” is a clarification to a legend:

Continue reading Voinnet’s notice count grows, as he notches his 18th correction

Retraction published for nutrition researcher Marion Nestle

journal_pubhealthFollowing her request last month, a public health journal has retracted a paper co-authored by prominent nutrition researcher Marion Nestle, after revelations of multiple factual errors and her co-author’s ties to one of the subjects of the article.

The article, an opinion piece, critiqued the supposed relationship between the biggest beverage distributor in Guatemala and the leading Guatemala-based public health organization, to distribute a fortified supplement (Manì+) for undernourished children. The relationship, the piece argued, raised concerns about the conflicts of interest that can occur when a food company pairs with a public health organization. But soon after publication, Nestle learned that she and her co-author Joaquin Barnoya had misrepresented that relationship, and failed to disclose that the public health organization was paying a portion of Barnoya’s salary.

Here’s the full retraction notice, published earlier this month by the Journal of Public Health Policy: Continue reading Retraction published for nutrition researcher Marion Nestle