Category: by publisher

Data in biofuel paper “had either been grossly misinterpreted or fabricated”

A biology journal has retracted a 2011 paper after the University of California, Los Angeles determined that the data in three figures “cannot be supported.”

In February, the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology retracted the paper, which explores efforts to engineer bacteria to convert plant biomass into biofuel.

Claudia Modlin, assistant director of UCLA’s Office of Research Policy and Compliance, told Retraction Watch that the university informed the journal about the issues last October, after reviewing the work. Continue reading Data in biofuel paper “had either been grossly misinterpreted or fabricated”

Caught Our Notice: No retraction for “likely fraudulent” study

Title: Homocysteine as a predictive factor for hip fracture in elderly women with Parkinson’s disease

What Caught Our Attention:  In a letter to the editor, researchers led by Mark Bolland recently outlined the many reasons why a study by Yoshihiro Sato and colleagues in The American Journal of Medicine was “unreliable,” including evidence that the patient numbers were not achievable as described, and inconsistencies and errors in the study data. And let’s not forget a 2016 analysis (co-authored by Bolland) which cast doubt on Sato’s body of work, suggesting that more than 30 of his papers could be problematic. Continue reading Caught Our Notice: No retraction for “likely fraudulent” study

When a journal is delisted, authors pay a price

Shocked, confused, disappointed — these are the reactions of authors who recently published in a cancer journal that was delisted by a company that indexes journals.

Recently, Clarivate Analytics announced it would discontinue indexing Oncotarget after the first few issues of 2018 — as a result, the journal would not receive a current impact factor. The company did not tell us a specific reason why, simply saying it “no longer meets the standards necessary for continued coverage.” Last year, the journal was also removed from the U.S. government biomedical research database MEDLINE, also with no explanation. (At the time, the National Library of Medicine’s Associate Director for Library Operations told us readers who are familiar with the guidelines MEDLINE follows when deselecting journals “can draw their own conclusions” as to why Oncotarget was removed.)

After we covered Clarivate’s decision to delist Oncotarget, many posted comments on the story, including suggestions the move could hurt authors who submitted papers before the announcement. (Some comments also appeared to be versions of the same request that the journal be indexed through January 15.)

We reached out to many of the corresponding authors on papers in the January 26 issue, the seventh issue published in 2018. Many are based at leading institutions around the world; all had submitted their manuscripts months ago. Some noted that they were surprised by the decision, as the review process appeared quite rigorous; some told us that if they’d known the journal was going to be delisted, they would not have submitted their papers there.

Continue reading When a journal is delisted, authors pay a price

Retraction count for Italian researcher swells to 15 as five papers fall

A researcher who is facing a criminal investigation in Italy for research misconduct has seen five more papers retracted, for a total of 16 15.

Molecular and Cellular Biology has retracted four papers published between 1987 to 2001 by Alfredo Fusco, a cancer researcher in Italy; the Journal of Virology retracted one 1985 paper. Fusco was first author on two papers and last author on three. Both journals are published by The American Society for Microbiology (ASM), which issued identical retraction notices for all five papers, mentioning “evidence of apparent manipulation and duplication.”

Carlo Croce, a cancer researcher now at the Ohio State University, who has been dogged by misconduct allegations, co-authored one of the papers.  Croce now has eight retractions.

Here’s the notice presented for all five retractions: Continue reading Retraction count for Italian researcher swells to 15 as five papers fall

A “GROSS CASE OF PLAGIARISM:” How did one Elsevier journal plagiarize another?

Nicholas Peppas

When Nicholas Peppas, chair of engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, discovered one of his papers had been plagiarized, he decided to “go public!”

On February 27, Peppas tweeted about a “gross case of plagiarism:” He alleged a 2013 review published in Saudi Pharmaceutical Journal had directly copied sections of his 2011 review in Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews—both published by Elsevier. (The tweet includes a side-by-side image of a section of the two texts.) Continue reading A “GROSS CASE OF PLAGIARISM:” How did one Elsevier journal plagiarize another?

New tool looks for signs of image doctoring

Mary Walsh

One of the most common reasons for retractions is image manipulation. When searching for evidence of it, researchers often rely on what their eyes tell them. But what if screening tools could help? Last week, researchers described a new automated tool to screen images for duplication (reported by Nature News); with help from publishing giant Elsevier, another group at Harvard Medical School is developing a different approach. We spoke with creators Mary Walsh, Chief Scientific Investigator in the Office for Professional Standards and Integrity, and Daniel Wainstock, Associate Director of Research Integrity, about how the tool works, and why — unlike the other recently described automated tool — they want to make theirs freely available.

Retraction Watch: What prompted you to develop this tool?

Continue reading New tool looks for signs of image doctoring

Overlooked virus “generated a mess,” infected highly cited Cell, PNAS papers

When Alexander Harms arrived at the University of Copenhagen in August 2016, as a postdoc planning to study a type of antibiotic resistance in bacteria, he carried with him a warning from another lab who had recruited him:

People said, “If you go there, you have to deal with these weird articles that nobody believes.”

The papers in question had been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2011 and Cell in 2013. Led by Kenn Gerdes, Harms’s new lab director, the work laid out a complex chain of events that mapped out how an E. coli bacterium can go into a dormant state, called persistence, that allows it to survive while the rest of its colony is wiped out.

Despite some experts’ skepticism, each paper had been cited hundreds of times. And Harms told us:

I personally did believe in the published work. There had been papers from others that kind of attacked [the Gerdes lab’s theory], but that was not high-quality work.

But by November 2016, Harms figured out that the skeptics had been right.  Continue reading Overlooked virus “generated a mess,” infected highly cited Cell, PNAS papers

Associate editors, editorial board resign from architecture journal in protest

The editorial board of an architecture journal has resigned en masse after the publisher announced it plans to terminate the editor’s contract at the end of this year.

In an open letter to publisher Taylor and Francis, the editorial board of Building Research and Information says the publisher’s decision is:  

deeply shocking and we strenuously disagree with this decision. It is not in the best interests of the journal or the community served by the journal.

Taylor & Francis have argued that an editor’s term should be limited. But many academics disagree — an online petition to save outgoing editor Richard Lorch (started by Lorch himself) has collected hundreds of signatures; many people on Twitter have posted comments using the hashtag “#saveBRIeditor.”

At the end of the open letter, three associate editors and dozens of board members write:

Continue reading Associate editors, editorial board resign from architecture journal in protest

Journal investigating earlier work by author of discredited fish-microplastics paper 

A biology journal is investigating concerns about a 2014 paper by a marine biologist who was found guilty of misconduct last year.

In December, Uppsala University concluded that Oona Lönnstedt had “fabricated the results” of a controversial 2016 Science paper (now retracted), which examined the harms of human pollution on fish. (Lönnstedt’s supervisor Peter Eklöv was also found guilty of misconduct and had a four-year government grant terminated.) Continue reading Journal investigating earlier work by author of discredited fish-microplastics paper 

Caught Our Notice: Should publicly funded research tools be free for researchers to use?

Title: Adherence to Adjuvant Neuropathic Pain Medications in a Palliative Care Clinic

What Caught Our Attention: We’ve found a fourth retraction for the unlicensed use of a common research tool, an issue we explored in depth for Science last year. Quick recap: When researchers use a copyrighted questionnaire (MMAS-8) without permission, they get a call from its creator Donald Morisky (or his representative), asking them to pay up — sometimes thousands of dollars. There’s another option: Retract the paper. That was the choice made by a group of researchers in Arkansas, who — in a nicely detailed notice — note that, since the scale was developed using federal funds, “they dispute the validity and reasonableness of Dr. Morisky’s demands in light of the National Institutes of Health’s Principles and Guidelines for Recipients of NIH Research Grants and Contracts on Obtaining and Disseminating Biomedical Research Resources.” Continue reading Caught Our Notice: Should publicly funded research tools be free for researchers to use?