Category: elsevier

*Savaskan and Nitsch, forced to retract FASEB J paper, correct Cell study with duplicated figure

In August, we wrote about the complicated case of a paper retracted from FASEB Journal that had originally been slated for a correction instead. There had been allegations of misconduct by one of the authors, Nicolai E. Savaskan, and the key parts of the retraction notice for the paper were as follows:

A well-recognized and top-class fact finding commission concluded that the publication contains gross flaws. A key figure (Figure 14) and the conclusions drawn from it could not be underlined with the corresponding primary data.

Savaskan told us at the time that FASEB Journal had agreed to a correction of the figure in question, but ended up retracting the paper after receiving a letter from Annette Gruters-Kieslich at Charite – Universitatsmedizin Berlin, where the work was done. We didn’t get much of an answer from FASEB Journal about why they changed their minds.

*Since understanding why one paper warrants a correction and another gets retracted is important for us at Retraction Watch, a correction of a 2009 Cell paper by a group that included Savaskan and his FASEB J c0-author Robert Nitsch caught our eye. The correction for “Synaptic PRG-1 Modulates Excitatory Transmission via Lipid Phosphate-Mediated Signaling” — a paper cited nine times so far, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge — ran in the September 16, 2011 issue of Cell: Continue reading *Savaskan and Nitsch, forced to retract FASEB J paper, correct Cell study with duplicated figure

The ‘Goldilocks’ retraction? Revealing differences in how several neurology journals handled related problems

Four neurology journals have retracted articles by a Japanese researcher who admitted to having made “mistakes” in his handling of data. Although the cases are related, the way the journals have handled the  notices is startlingly different. One chose to say nothing, one chose to say little, while two went for full — or at least, approximately that — disclosure.

Guess which ones we like the most? Continue reading The ‘Goldilocks’ retraction? Revealing differences in how several neurology journals handled related problems

Brown bear, brown bear, what do you see? I see fraud in sexual selection infanticide commentary

From the, No Further Explanation Required files:

The journal Animal Behaviour has retracted a 2009 article by an international group of researchers who, well, did just about everything one could do wrong with a paper.

Here’s the notice, res ipsa loquitur: Continue reading Brown bear, brown bear, what do you see? I see fraud in sexual selection infanticide commentary

Publisher error handling two eye papers leads to retractions, new policy on notices

We can only imagine how Joe Hollyfield felt to learn from us, of all people, that his journal, Experimental Eye Research, had retracted two manuscripts in a recent issue.

The papers, “Mechanisms of retinal ganglion cell injury and defense in glaucoma,” by Qu J, Wang D, and Grosskreutz CL, and “Mitochondria: Their role in ganglion cell death and survival in primary open angle glaucoma,” by Osborne, NN, carried the same retraction notices:

This article has been withdrawn at the request of the author(s) and/or editor. The Publisher apologizes for any inconvenience this may cause. The full Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal can be found at http://www.elsevier.com/locate/withdrawalpolicy.

Because in our experience such unhelpful wording often masks interesting details — read, author misconduct — we called Hollyfield for comment. He graciously walked us through the retractions, explaining the case in detail, until we realized that we were talking about different papers entirely. Hollyfield, it turned out, thought we were asking about the travails of Sangiliyandi Gurunathan, an eye researcher from India whom we’d previously covered and whose work recently had been retracted by Experimental Eye Research and other journals for image manipulation.

But Hollyfield was unaware of the two retractions we’d intended to talk about with him and told us he’d look into them.

Here’s what he learned: Continue reading Publisher error handling two eye papers leads to retractions, new policy on notices

New retractions of diabetes, cardiovascular papers from Japan involve repeat use of figures

At least four retractions have appeared involving the work of a group of Japanese researchers who appear to have reused figures — and doctored them — in multiple manuscripts.

The authors, led by Yoshiyuki Hattori, of Dokkyo University School of Medicine in Mibu (whose motto, by the way, is “where character is developed through learning” a reader points out that we had the wrong Dokkyo initially), published the same figure twice, and in the same year, in the Journal of Cardiovascular Pharmacology and Biochimica et Biophysica Acta.

Here’s a retraction notice from the JCP: Continue reading New retractions of diabetes, cardiovascular papers from Japan involve repeat use of figures

Ties that don’t bind: Group retracts parathyroid hormone crystallography paper

The authors of a 2008 paper alleging to have described how a particular protein binds to the parathyroid hormone have retracted it. The paper, “Structure of the Parathyroid Hormone Receptor C Terminus Bound to the G-Protein Dimer Gβ12,” has been cited 12 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. According to the notice: Continue reading Ties that don’t bind: Group retracts parathyroid hormone crystallography paper

Plagiarism forces retraction of mathematical modeling paper

A group of Turkish researchers has retracted a paper purporting to show a method of calculating the thermodynamic properties of certain transition metals, because it was plagiarized from another article. The withdrawn paper, “A simple analytical EAM model for some bcc metals,” was published in 2010 in Communications in Nonlinear Science and Numerical Simulation.

Here’s the notice (we added a link to the plagiarized paper): Continue reading Plagiarism forces retraction of mathematical modeling paper

Angiogenesis retracts two papers, cites image manipulation in eight, as PI blames unethical students

The journal Angiogenesis is retracting two articles by a group of researchers in India whom it accuses of using manipulated images in six other publications as well.

According to the retraction notice for one of the papers, “Gold nanoparticles inhibit vascular endothelial growth factor-induced angiogenesis and vascular permeability via Src
dependent pathway in retinal endothelial cells” (we’ve annotated with links and citation data): Continue reading Angiogenesis retracts two papers, cites image manipulation in eight, as PI blames unethical students

Should we change our name to Mori Watch? Yet another retraction from cancer researcher

Earlier this week we reported on the latest retraction of an article by Naoki Mori, number 21 in a series. We could have waited a few days and saved ourselves some trouble.

The journal Leukemia Research has retracted a 2006 paper by Mori, titled “Curcumin suppresses constitutive activation of AP-1 by downregulation of JunD protein in HTLV-1-infected T-cell lines.” From the notice, which is behind a paywall: Continue reading Should we change our name to Mori Watch? Yet another retraction from cancer researcher

Applied Mathematics Letters posts apology for retracting Intelligent Design-friendly paper

Applied Mathematics Letters, which agreed to apologize to Intelligent Design-friendly Texas professor Granville Sewell and have its publisher, Elsevier, pay $10,000 in legal fees, has posted the text of its apology (Of note: Elsevier has the apology behind a paywall. So if 318 people fork over the $31.50 fee, they’ll have their $10,000 back.): Continue reading Applied Mathematics Letters posts apology for retracting Intelligent Design-friendly paper