Category: by publisher

Resveratrol fraud case update: Dipak Das loses editor’s chair, lawyer issues statement refuting all charges

Das, via UConn

Many Retraction Watch readers will now be familiar with the case of Dipak Das, the resveratrol researcher about whom the University of Connecticut issued a voluminous report yesterday — summary here — detailing 145 counts of data fabrication and falsification. This has been a fast-moving story, so we wanted to highlight a number of updates to our original post, and offer a few more.

First, we have confirmed with publisher Mary Ann Liebert this morning that Das has been relieved of his duties as co-editor in chief of Antioxidants & Redox Signaling. He had shared that post with Chandan Sen, and his name as been removed from the masthead of that journal. Here’s a statement from the publisher: Continue reading Resveratrol fraud case update: Dipak Das loses editor’s chair, lawyer issues statement refuting all charges

Eye of the needle? Paper about camels gets rejected, then published, then retracted

photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/bysheribeari/ via Flickr

If there’s one thing worse than having your paper rejected by a journal, it’s having it retracted. But usually a paper has to be accepted before it’s published and withdrawn.

Not so for a study from the United Arab Emirates, “Detection and genotyping of GB virus-C in dromedary camels in the United Arab Emirates,” published in 2010 in Veterinary Microbiology.

The editors of the journal ruminated — hey now! is this thing on? — on the paper,  only to give it the thumbs down. But come to find out, it got published anyway. Thus, the following retraction notice, which appeared online last month: Continue reading Eye of the needle? Paper about camels gets rejected, then published, then retracted

Cancer issues expression of concern about two Henschke I-ELCAP lung cancer screening papers

The journal Cancer has issued an Expression of Concern about two lung cancer screening papers long dogged by doubt.

Last April, The Cancer Letter and The New York Times jointly published an investigation into the International Early Lung Cancer Action Program (I-ELCAP) run by Claudia Henschke and David Yankelevitz. Other researchers had already criticized the design and conclusions of that trial, but as the investigation noted, an October 2008 review of the study found that the researchers couldn’t find 90 percent of the subjects’ consent forms, an ethical no-no that jeopardizes as many as 135 papers.

Two papers published in Cancer, in 2000 and 2001, are among those studies, according to the notice (links added), which credits the Times and The Cancer Letter and notes that the journal has referred the case to Federal investigators: Continue reading Cancer issues expression of concern about two Henschke I-ELCAP lung cancer screening papers

Hopkins scientists retract prostate cancer screening study at center of 2009 lawsuits

The authors of a study in Urology that was at the center of two 2009 lawsuits brought by a company that funded the work have retracted the paper.

The idea behind the research — by Robert Getzenberg and colleagues at Johns Hopkins — was to find an alternative to the prostate specific antigen (PSA) test, which many urologists recommend, but which many groups — including the US Preventive Services Task Force — find wanting. The work gave rise to a company, Onconome, Science reported in a 2009 story about the lawsuits: Continue reading Hopkins scientists retract prostate cancer screening study at center of 2009 lawsuits

Plagiarism kills weed paper

The January 2012 issue of Biosystems Engineering has a commendably thorough retraction notice regarding a case of plagiarism in its pages.

The notice, regarding the article “Advanced techniques for Weed and crop identification for site specific Weed management,” by Karan Singh, K.N. Agrawal, and Ganesh C. Bora, of North Dakota State University, speaks for itself: Continue reading Plagiarism kills weed paper

Multiple retractions as brazen plagiarist victimizes orthopedics literature

Several journals in the field of orthopedics and related disciplines have been victimized by an apparent serial plagiarist.

The author, Bernardino Saccomanni, of Gabriele D’ Annunzio University, in Chieti Scalo, Italy—across the boot and up a bit from Rome—appears to have lifted significant amounts of text in several articles.

Last January, for example, Current Reviews in Musculoskeletal Medicine, a Springer title, retracted a 2010 article by Saccomanni, “Painful os intermetatarseum in athletes: a literature review of this condition is presented,” after determining that it plagiarized a 2007 article in the Archives of Orthopaedic Trauma Surgery, also from Springer, with a very similar title, “Painful os intermetatarseum in athletes: report of four cases and review of the literature.”

Osteoporosis International, another Springer publication, has retracted a 2011 paper by Saccomanni titled “Vertebroplasty: an international point of view on this “minimally invasive” surgical technique,” after evidently learning that the point of view wasn’t exactly Saccomanni’s to begin with. Continue reading Multiple retractions as brazen plagiarist victimizes orthopedics literature

Another Hattori retraction over reused figure from cardiology pub

Another paper in Diabetologia by Yoshiyuki Hattori has been retracted for image duplication, marking the second of his articles in the journal to be pulled for that reason.

The notice for the article, “A glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) analogue, liraglutide, upregulates nitric oxide production and exerts anti-inflammatory action in endothelial cells,” states: Continue reading Another Hattori retraction over reused figure from cardiology pub

Which came first? Vet journal retracts previously published chicken paper

Research in Veterinary Science has retracted a 2010 paper by Egyptian scientists who published the same article the previous year in a different journal.

Here’s the retraction notice for the paper, “Comparative biochemical studies on steroidogenic compounds in chickens,” by Mohamed O.T. Badr and Mohamed A. Hashem,  from Zagazig University and the Egyptian Ministry of Agriculture: Continue reading Which came first? Vet journal retracts previously published chicken paper

Duplication earns German HIV researchers a retraction, and a 3-year publishing ban

An HIV researcher in Germany has run afoul of a number of journals because he duplicated his papers in multiple outlets.

The funny business by Ulrich Hengge earned him a 3-year ban on publishing in two journals, the Journal of Molecular Medicine (JMM) and Cells, Tissues and Organs (CTO). (We’ve written about publishing bans — which appear to be fairly rare — before.)

Those journals also sanctioned one of his co-authors, Alireza Mirmohammadsadegh. The JMM’s managing editor, Christiane Nolte, told us by email: Continue reading Duplication earns German HIV researchers a retraction, and a 3-year publishing ban

Neigh: Journal retracts brief endangered horse paper for mysterious reasons

Przewalski's Horse, by Jeff Kubina via Wikimedia http://bit.ly/uVr8Ng

Is retracting a paper like shutting the barn door after the horses have bolted?

Sadly, that’s a more apt metaphor than we’d like for a retraction in Equine Veterinary Journal of a short paper about efforts to save Przewalski’s horses, an endangered species closely related to domestic horses. Here’s the notice: Continue reading Neigh: Journal retracts brief endangered horse paper for mysterious reasons