Category: by publisher

Salami slicing and heart attacks don’t mix: Duplication, lack of transparency lead to retraction

A group of French cardiology researchers have retracted a study of a potential way to rule out heart attacks, after it became clear they had used data from another study without alerting the journal.

In an unusually forthright letter accompanying the retraction of “Concomitant measurement of copeptin and high-sensitivity troponin for fast and reliable rule out of acute myocardial infarction,” originally published in Intensive Care Medicine, Bruno Riou and colleagues note: Continue reading Salami slicing and heart attacks don’t mix: Duplication, lack of transparency lead to retraction

Three more retractions for resveratrol researcher Dipak Das, in free radical journals

Das, via UConn

The retraction count for Dipak Das, the resveratrol researcher whom the University of Connecticut found to have committed 145 counts of fabrication and falsification of data, has risen to eight with withdrawals by Free Radical Biology & Medicine and Free Radical Research.

The two Free Radical Biology & Medicine retractions, for “Expression of the longevity proteins by both red and white wines and their cardioprotective components, resveratrol, tyrosol, and hydroxytyrosol” (cited 38 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge) and “Redox regulation of resveratrol-mediated switching of death signal into survival signal” (cited 32 times), are carefully detailed and read the same way: Continue reading Three more retractions for resveratrol researcher Dipak Das, in free radical journals

Cell paper, once plagiarized, pulled for dodgy figures

A while back (last June, to be precise), we wrote about a group of Japanese endocrinologists who found a creative way to up their citation counts using duplicate publication. At the time, the researchers were docked a 2004 paper in the Journal of Steroid Biochemistry & Molecular Biology that had self-plagiarized extensively from a 2003 article in Cell.

Well, skeptics of this new math take heart: The group’s publication total has fallen yet again. Turns out that 2003 paper — which has been cited 160 times, up from 144 when we checked last year, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge — wasn’t quite up to snuff, either.

According to the retraction notice for the article, “The Chromatin-Remodeling Complex WINAC Targets a Nuclear Receptor to Promoters and Is Impaired in Williams Syndrome:” Continue reading Cell paper, once plagiarized, pulled for dodgy figures

Rheumatology retracts lupus-cancer meta-analysis over multiple errors

Rheumatology has retracted a 2011 paper with too many errors to correct.

According to the notice, the article, titled “Meta-analysis of systemic lupus erythematosus and the risk of cervical neoplasia’, by Hongli Liu and colleagues at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in China, seems to have been deeply flawed: Continue reading Rheumatology retracts lupus-cancer meta-analysis over multiple errors

Rabbits needn’t worry about cell phones’ effects on their sperm count, say three retractions

If you’re a rabbit and you haven’t figured out where to carry your cell phone, your front pocket is just fine.

That’s what you could reasonably infer from the retraction of a paper in the International Journal of Andrology purporting to show that mobile phones affected rabbits’ sperm counts. The notice, signed by the journal’s editor, Ewa Rajpert-De Meyts (we added links): Continue reading Rabbits needn’t worry about cell phones’ effects on their sperm count, say three retractions

Paper linking vitamin C and reduced asthma retracted after authors find “severe” problems with data

It’s never a good sign when a paper has “severe” problems with its data. But when even the researchers are at a loss to explain how those problems made their way into the manuscript, well, that’s downright alarming.

Consider: The journal Clinical and Translational Allergy has retracted a 2011 article by researchers from Egypt and Finland, who have been studying the effects of vitamin C on childhood asthma. In a previous article, published in 2009 in Acta Paediatrica, members of the team reported that Continue reading Paper linking vitamin C and reduced asthma retracted after authors find “severe” problems with data

Redox, redux: Journal pulls paper over data problems

Antioxidants & Redox Signalling has issued much more detailed retraction notice for a paper it pulled last year that was marred by duplicate data.

As we reported then, the journal’s initial notice for the 2011 article, titled “Inhibition of LXRa-dependent steatosis and oxidative injury by liquiritigenin, a licorice flavonoid, as mediated with Nrf2 activation,” was underwhelming:

THIS WORK HAS BEEN RETRACTED BY THE AUTHORS

Although we learned at the time that a reader, Paul Brookes, of the University of Rochester, had raised concerns about the article to the editors of ARS and other publications, we were glad to see that ARS has decided to make a clean breast of matters. The study has been cited by other papers three times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

Here’s the notice, from editor Chandan K. Sen: Continue reading Redox, redux: Journal pulls paper over data problems

Authors retract paper claiming antidepressants prevent suicide

The authors of a study allegedly showing that antidepressants prevent suicide have retracted it over unspecified errors. Here’s the notice:

At the request of the authors and in agreement with the Editor-in-Chief and Wiley-Blackwell, the following article “Antidepressant medication prevents suicide in depression”. Acta Psychiatr Scand 2010;122:454–460 has been retracted. The retraction has been requested and agreed due to unintentional errors in the analysis of the data presented.

The original paper linked “data on the toxicological detection of antidepressants in 18 922 suicides in Sweden 1992–2003” to “registers of psychiatric hospitalization as well as registers with sociodemographic data.” It found: Continue reading Authors retract paper claiming antidepressants prevent suicide

Hold the broccoli, garlic, and wine: Three Dipak Das retractions appear in Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry

The Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry has retracted three papers by Dipak Das, the resveratrol researcher found to have committed more than 100 counts of fraud by the University of Connecticut.

Journal editor James Seiber writes: Continue reading Hold the broccoli, garlic, and wine: Three Dipak Das retractions appear in Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry

Society error leads to published — then retracted — Alzheimer’s abstract from top group

Alzheimer’s & Dementia has retracted a meeting abstract the journal published without the OK of the researchers, a top group from Harvard, who submitted it but withdrew the work before the conference.

That, as they say, might require some unpacking. Maybe this will make things clearer.

Raj Hooli, a graduate student in the lab of Rudolph Tanzi, a leading neuroscientist at Harvard — where he holds the Joseph P. and Rose F. Kennedy endowed chair of neurology — had submitted the abstract, “Genome-wide assessment of copy number variations in early-onset Alzheimer’s disease,” for consideration at the International Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease (ICAD).

As Tanzi explains: Continue reading Society error leads to published — then retracted — Alzheimer’s abstract from top group