Retraction number five for management professor Ulrich Lichtenthaler

The retraction count for management professor Ulrich Lichtenthaler, whose work has been subject to scrutiny for statistical irregularities, is up to five. Here’s the notice for “Product business, foreign direct investment, and licensing: Examining their relationships in international technology exploitation,” in the Journal of World Business: Continue reading Retraction number five for management professor Ulrich Lichtenthaler

Duplication earns highly cited prostate cancer researcher a correction in JCO

Laurence Klotz, a prominent urologist at the University of Toronto who studies the prostate specific antigen (PSA), has corrected a paper after reusing his own words from an earlier review.

Here’s the correction, from the Journal of Clinical Oncology (JCO): Continue reading Duplication earns highly cited prostate cancer researcher a correction in JCO

Seeing red (wine): Another retraction for Dipak Das, making count 13

Today’s Retraction Watch, to paraphrase Sesame Street, is brought to you by the number 13.

Earlier, we reported on several retractions from Diederik Stapel that bring his total to that number, and now we’ve learned about number 13 for Dipak Das. Das is of course the UConn researcher who was found to have committed 145 counts of misconduct in his studies of the red wine compound resveratrol and other subjects.

Here’s the notice, from The Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry, for “Resveratrol, a unique phytoalexin present in red wine, delivers either survival signal or death signal to the ischemic myocardium depending on dose:” Continue reading Seeing red (wine): Another retraction for Dipak Das, making count 13

Cancer journal pulls deeply flawed meeting abstract on breast surgery

The European Journal of Surgical Oncology has retracted a meeting abstract that evidently was never meant to be.

The study, by researchers at Queen Elizabeth Hospital and Good Hope Hospital, both in Birmingham, England, was to be presented at this year’s annual meeting of the Association of Breast Surgery and purported to compare rates of patient satisfaction among women who underwent two kinds of breast reconstruction, TRAM — transverse rectus abdominis myocutaneous  — flap and DIEP (short for deep inferior epigastric perforators) flap.

But according to the notice: Continue reading Cancer journal pulls deeply flawed meeting abstract on breast surgery

Ovarian transplant update: Authors of 2004 live-birth follow-up letter ask Lancet to retract it

Yesterday, we brought you news of a story in Belgium involving questions about whether a woman who gave birth following an ovarian transplant could have become pregnant without the transplant. The case, which led to a university investigation but no retraction, included allegations of theft and arson.

This morning, we were made aware of a request for a retraction from The Lancet related to other work by Jacques Donnez, the obstetrician-gynecologist at the center of the case. In 2004, Donnez and colleagues published what they said was the first pregnancy using frozen banked ovarian tissue in The Lancet. The paper has been cited hundreds of times, but not everyone agreed with Donnez et al’s assessment at the time. All but one of the authors of a Lancet letter — colleagues of Donnez’s at the Catholic University of Louvain — describing the perinatal follow-up of the woman now say they don’t either, and want to retract their letter.

In their letter requesting retraction, published in the journal on July 14, Corinne Hubinont and colleagues write that they “did not have access to the patient’s gynaecological records throughout the pregnancy,” but that “Recently, we had the opportunity to read the patient’s notes,” which include a progesterone measurement “omitted by Donnez and colleagues:” Continue reading Ovarian transplant update: Authors of 2004 live-birth follow-up letter ask Lancet to retract it

Chinese mathematician forced to retract paper after two co-authors say they had nothing to do with work

A mathematician will be performing subtraction on his CV now that he has had to retract a 2011 paper because his co-authors never agreed to submit it with him.

Kewen Zhao, of Qiongzhou University, Sanya, China, has lost a paper in Discrete Applied Mathematics, a journal for which Zhao claims to review. (Given the circumstances, perhaps he meant Indiscreet Applied Mathematics.)

According to the notice: Continue reading Chinese mathematician forced to retract paper after two co-authors say they had nothing to do with work

What happens when a correction is retracted?

Seyed Rasoul Mousavi, assistant professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at the Isfahan University of Technology in Khomeynīshahr, Iran, has been working on a way to help biologists assemble genomes with as little information as possible.

Last year, Mousavi submitted a manuscript to the Journal of Theoretical Biology, received acceptance after peer review, and got proofs back to edit.

For technical reasons, Mousavi says his corrections didn’t make it into the final article published on Jan. 12, so the publishers issued a separate corrigendum with the editorial changes. Then, on Feb. 8, the publishers retracted the corrigendum that accompanied the original article. The retraction of the corrigendum reads: Continue reading What happens when a correction is retracted?

Two retractions in biophysics journal, one because article is “too preliminary and potentially misleading”

We’ve seen vigorous debates here on Retraction Watch about when studies should be retracted. Does it require fraud? Just not being reproducible? Somewhere in between?

Given the apparent divergence of opinions on the issue, we thought it would be worth highlighting a case that involves language we haven’t seen before. Here’s the notice for “Apoptosis of CT26 colorectal cancer cells induced by Clostridium difficile toxin A stimulates potent anti-tumor immunity,” which originally appeared online in Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications in April: Continue reading Two retractions in biophysics journal, one because article is “too preliminary and potentially misleading”

Another retraction for grad student who specializes in plagiarism and forging co-authors’ names

We have an update on the case of Moêz Smiri, a graduate student working in a Tunisian-French laboratory, whose bold method of bulking up his CV  proved a bit trop ambitieux. 

As we reported back in August 2011, Smiri had plagiarized repeatedly from previously-published work, and forged the names of co-authors, in a 2010 article in Plant Science on the effects of cadmium on peas. That article was one of at least six papers on which Smiri appeared as first author — a pretty impressive output for a young researcher.

Among the list was article in Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety, “Effect of cadmium on resumption of respiration in cotyledons of germinating pea seeds.” That paper is now retracted. According to the notice: Continue reading Another retraction for grad student who specializes in plagiarism and forging co-authors’ names

Three papers by German management prof retracted for duplication, statistical issues

Ulrich Lichtenthaler, a management professor in Germany, has had three papers retracted by two different journals, after readers noticed statistical irregularities.

Lichtenthaler was at the WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management when he published the papers in 2009 and 2010. He is now at the University of Mannheim. The retraction in Strategic Organization was first reported by the Strategy Profs blog. It reads: Continue reading Three papers by German management prof retracted for duplication, statistical issues