Category: by publisher

The HeLa problem: What a retraction says about whether cancer researchers can trust their cell lines

Retraction Watch readers who’ve read Rebecca Skloot’s bestseller The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks may remember that decades ago, scientists began realizing that Lacks’s cells, now known as the HeLa cell line and used in labs around the world, were so good at proliferating that they had taken over many other cell lines researchers use to study human disease.

Such readers would have been nodding their heads at a front-page Wall Street Journal on Saturday. As Amy Dockser Marcus (no relation to Adam) reports: Continue reading The HeLa problem: What a retraction says about whether cancer researchers can trust their cell lines

A retracted periodontitis-heart disease paper that didn’t make it into the new AHA review

On Wednesday, the American Heart Association announced something that those of us who’d been reading the medical literature carefully had known for a while: Bad gums do not cause heart disease.

Periodontitis is linked to bad heart disease, you see, as studies have shown, and periodontists have sure been using this as an excuse to tell us to floss. But there’s never been a convincing study showing that one causes the other.

In fact, it’s not even clear how you’d do that study. “Let’s see, for a control group, we should have 100 people convince themselves they’re flossing for a year, but not actually floss….oh, what else can we get funding for?”

That “news” prompted an email from Retraction Watch friend Marc Abrahams, Continue reading A retracted periodontitis-heart disease paper that didn’t make it into the new AHA review

Whistling the same Tunisia: Serial plagiarists plague the oncology literature

A group of cancer researchers from Tunisia has been seeding the oncology literature with plagiarized articles that steal liberally — both text and data — from the work of others.

The group has one retraction, in the journal Obesity — whose splash page has the jaunty, if disconcerting, invite: “Welcome to Obesity!” — and at least two withdrawn papers. However, we have been alerted to at least one other case of apparent plagiarism involving an article in the Annals of Saudi Medicine that ought to receive careful scrutiny. Continue reading Whistling the same Tunisia: Serial plagiarists plague the oncology literature

Neurochemistry journal retracts paper after earlier mega-correction for an author who’s no stranger to errata

The Journal of Neurochemistry has retracted a 2008 paper, “Toll-like receptor 3 contributes to spinal glial activation and tactile allodynia after nerve injury,” it had initially corrected — and how.

The correction, which appeared online in August 2010, was extensive: Continue reading Neurochemistry journal retracts paper after earlier mega-correction for an author who’s no stranger to errata

Math paper retracted because it “contains no scientific content”

Have a seat, this one’s a howler.

According to a retraction notice for “Computer application in mathematics,” published in Computers & Mathematics with Applications: Continue reading Math paper retracted because it “contains no scientific content”

Group investigated by University of Louisville corrects lung cancer paper after retracting six others

A group of researchers whose work has been under investigation at the University of Louisville has issued a correction for a paper in the American Journal of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology (AJRCMB).

The correction follows three retractions each in the Journal of Biological Chemistry and the AJRCMB, the latter of which made it clear that lab member ShouWei Han was responsible for the manipulations and duplications that brought down the papers. Here’s the new notice, which appeared in the March 1, 2012 issue of the journal: Continue reading Group investigated by University of Louisville corrects lung cancer paper after retracting six others

Crise de foie: Liver journals retract duplicate biomarker pubs

Two liver journals have retracted articles from a group of Irani researchers who published similar — but not quite identical — versions of the same paper some months apart.

A retraction notice in the Journal of Gastrointestinal and Liver Diseases — which bills itself as the “Official Journal of the Romanian Societies of Gastroenterology” — explains what happened: Continue reading Crise de foie: Liver journals retract duplicate biomarker pubs

Back in the saddle: After more than 30 retractions, Naoki Mori publishing again

Naoki Mori

Perhaps it’s appropriate given the Easter season, but we have learned that Naoki Mori, the Japanese cancer researcher who received a 10-year publishing ban from the American Society of Microbiology (ASM) for imagine manipulation, has published a new paper.

Mori, who was fired and then rehired by the University of the Ryukyus over the scandal, is listed as the senior author on the paper, “Honokiol induces cell cycle arrest and apoptosis via inhibition of survival signals in adult T-cell leukemia,” which appears in the March issue of Biochimica et Biophysica Acta. The journal, an Elsevier title, is an umbrella for nine publications in the biosciences.

Two of Mori’s retracted articles appeared in the Elsevier journals Leukemia Research and Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications. Continue reading Back in the saddle: After more than 30 retractions, Naoki Mori publishing again

Third retraction arrives for Alirio Melendez, this one in the Journal of Cellular Physiology

Alirio Melendez, the former National University of Singapore researcher who has already retracted two papers in the midst of an investigation into about 70 of his publications, has had a third retracted a third.

Here’s the notice from the Journal of Cellular Physiology: Continue reading Third retraction arrives for Alirio Melendez, this one in the Journal of Cellular Physiology

It “takes a long time to have these experiments redone,” so group retracts wheat paper after reader challenges

Normally we’d make hay with the following notice in Acta Biochimica et Biophysica Sinica — separating the wheat from the chaff, Love and Death, and all that — but, well, it speaks for itself (sort of).

A group of researchers in China have retracted their 2011 paper on the biochemistry of chloroplast in wheat: Continue reading It “takes a long time to have these experiments redone,” so group retracts wheat paper after reader challenges