Silvia Bulfone-Paus, the Borstel Institute researcher who was forced to step down as institute director and has already retracted 12 papers, has retracted another, this one in Transplantation. Here’s the text of the notice: Continue reading Bulfone-Paus retraction count grows to 13 with one in Transplantation
Category: by publisher
Why editors should stop ignoring anonymous whistleblowers: Our latest LabTimes column
A retraction notice appeared a few months ago in the Biophysical Journal:
This article has been retracted: please see Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal (http://www.elsevier.com/locate/withdrawalpolicy).
This article has been retracted at the request of Edward Egelman, Editor-in-Chief.
The editors have noted that there is a substantial overlap of figures and text between this Biophysical Journal article and D. Rutkauskas, V. Novoderezkhin, R.J. Cogdell and R. van Grondelle. Fluorescence spectral fluctuations of single LH2 complexes from Rhodopseudomonas acidophila strain 10050. Biochemistry, 43 (2004) 4431–4438, doi:10.1021/bi0497648. The submission of this paper was inconsistent with the Biophysical Journal policy which states: “Manuscripts submitted to Biophysical Journal (BJ) must be original; papers that have already been published or are concurrently submitted elsewhere for publication are not acceptable for submission. This includes manuscripts previously submitted to BJ, as well as material that has been submitted to other journals while BJ is considering the manuscript. If some part of the work has appeared or will appear elsewhere, the authors must give the specific details of such appearances in the cover letter accompanying the BJ submission. If previously published illustrative material, such as figures or tables, must be included, the authors are responsible for obtaining the appropriate permissions from the publisher(s) before the material may be published in BJ”. We are therefore retracting the publication of the Biophysical Journal article.
Ordinarily, such duplications go to the bottom of our list of retractions to cover, despite how common they are. There’s usually less of a story behind them than there is behind a completely opaque notice, or behind one that sports a whiff of fraud. But they’re still important, as Bruce Chabner, the editor of The Oncologist, pointed out in a recent issue of his journal in which a duplication retraction appeared: Continue reading Why editors should stop ignoring anonymous whistleblowers: Our latest LabTimes column
Lab squabble leads to retracted correction over authorship in British Journal of Haematology
Here’s a he said-he said that left one author with a publication, then nothing, and us scratching our heads.
In March 2010, the British Journal of Haematology issued a rather straightforward correction regarding a 2007 article by a group of researchers from Kansas Kansas City, Missouri.
The glitch? The manuscript evidently left out an author:
In Iyamu et al (2007), the list of authors was incorrectly published and should have read:
Efemwonkiekie W. Iyamu, Syed Jamal, Chiazotam Ekekezie and Gerald M. Woods
Or maybe not. The journal is now retracting the correction: Continue reading Lab squabble leads to retracted correction over authorship in British Journal of Haematology
Two murky retractions in Chemosphere for authorship issues
The journal Chemosphere has retracted two papers over authorship concerns. The problem is, we don’t really know what those concerns are.
Here’s one notice: Continue reading Two murky retractions in Chemosphere for authorship issues
Second retraction arrives in Alirio Melendez case
Alirio Melendez, whose former employer, the National University of Singapore, is investigating about 70 of his papers, has retracted a second study. Here’s the notice for the 2010 Journal of Molecular Cell Biology paper, “Sphingosine-1-phosphate mediates proliferation maintaining the multipotency of human Adult Bone Marrow and Adipose Tissue-derived Stem Cells:” Continue reading Second retraction arrives in Alirio Melendez case
Following investigation, U Ottawa lab retracting four papers in the Journal of Biological Chemistry
A University of Ottawa lab has been forced to retract four papers from the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC) after an investigation of image manipulation.
According to an email from a university official obtained by Retraction Watch, a university investigative committee had “found substance to the allegations,” although it claimed it could not disclose details “due to their confidentiality.” The university requested that the JBC withdraw a November 2005 paper, and left it to the journal to “determine whether the other articles should also be withdrawn or if they can be corrected. ” And they took the issue to the agency that funded the work: Continue reading Following investigation, U Ottawa lab retracting four papers in the Journal of Biological Chemistry
Zhiguo Wang retractions appear in the Journal of Cellular Physiology
Last month, we reported that the last three of six promised retractions by Zhiguo Wang, who was a researcher at the Montreal Heart Institute until the results of an Institute investigation forced him to resign in early September — would be in the Journal of Cellular Physiology. They’ve now appeared.
Here are the three notices, which are far more informative than the Journal of Biological Chemistry was — and which make it clear Wang acted alone: Continue reading Zhiguo Wang retractions appear in the Journal of Cellular Physiology
A model retraction notice in Retrovirology
A retraction appeared earlier this month in Retrovirology that we think could be a model for other scientists and journals facing similar situations. The paper by Canadian and Chinese authors, “The cellular source for APOBEC3G’s incorporation into HIV-1,” was originally published in January 2011 and cited just once, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. Here’s the notice: Continue reading A model retraction notice in Retrovirology
Reason behind opaque Antioxidants & Redox Signaling retraction notice revealed
There’s an unhelpful retraction notice online in the journal Antioxidants & Redox Signaling, a Mary Ann Liebert publication. The paper, “Inhibition of LXRalpha-dependent steatosis and oxidative injury by liquiritigenin, a licorice flavonoid, as mediated with Nrf2 activation,” has been removed from the site, except for the abstract, which now has this in front of it:
THIS WORK HAS BEEN RETRACTED BY THE AUTHORS
That, as we’ve said before in exasperation, certainly clears things right up.
But we found out the reason for the retraction from Paul S. Brookes, an associate professor of anesthesiology at the University of Rochester Medical Center. Here’s the letter he sent the editors of Antioxidants & Redox Signaling and Free Radical Biology and Medicine, an Elsevier title: Continue reading Reason behind opaque Antioxidants & Redox Signaling retraction notice revealed
Materials paper retracted after post-doc’s plagiarism
The Journal of Materials
Science: Materials in Medicine has retracted a 2011 paper after it was determined that the first author, then a post-doc at the University of Michigan, had plagiarized from another publication.
The first author of the retracted article, “Functionalization of titanium based metallic biomaterials for implant applications,” was the post-doc, Rahul Bhola, who received his PhD from the Colorado School of Mines and went to Michigan to work in the lab of Catherine Krull.
Fruit of that relationship was the paper — and here’s how that worked out: Continue reading Materials paper retracted after post-doc’s plagiarism