Category: society journal retractions

Mega-correction for “empirical anomalies” in management paper

The Academy of Management JournalThe author of a paper that looked at how the geographical spread of research and development sites has impacted innovation has posted a four-page list of corrections that fixed “empirical anomalies” in the paper.

A group of PhD students raised concerns about the paper’s findings, according to the editor-in-chief of The Academy of Management Journal, Gerard George. The journal formed a committee that worked with the author to reproduce the results. That ended with a correction to two of the paper’s three hypotheses, and corresponding parts of the text.

The four-page notice — (the details of which are paywalled, unfortunately) — includes notes from the journal’s editor and the author:

Continue reading Mega-correction for “empirical anomalies” in management paper

Author appeals retraction for plagiarism in clinical research paper

Journal of Human Reproductive SciencesThe first author of a paper that discussed sample sizes in clinical research is appealing the journal’s decision to retract it for plagiarism, arguing the article is “entirely different.”

The  Journal of Human Reproductive Sciences‘s editor-in-chief told us that they first contacted the author about the allegations more than two years ago, and finally issued the notice in September, saying the paper “directly copied” from another article on randomization. “Thus owing to duplicity of text, the article is being retracted,” according to the notice.

That doesn’t jibe with first author K. P. Suresh, based at the National Institute of Veterinary Epidemiology and Disease Informatics in India. He told us that the “two articles are entirely different concept.” In subsequent emails, he added Continue reading Author appeals retraction for plagiarism in clinical research paper

Journal mistakenly publishes Parkinson’s case report twice

Journal of Movement Disorders

A journal has retracted a duplicate version of a case report about a patient with Parkinson’s disease after mistakenly publishing the paper twice.

The Journal of Movement Disorders initially published the report — which detailed the case of an elderly woman with Parkinson’s disease whose symptoms worsened during drug treatment — in 2010. But it ended up printing it again in 2011 because of “a mistake of the editorial office and the publisher.”

The notice reads:

Continue reading Journal mistakenly publishes Parkinson’s case report twice

Authors defend publishing clinical trial six times, even as they earn two more retractions

Screen Shot 2015-09-30 at 12.14.06 PMIn August, we reported on a clinical trial on hundreds of hypertensive patients that was published six times. Now, copies published in Expert Opinion on Drug Safety and Journal of the American Society of Hypertension (JASH) have been retracted, making for a total of three retractions for the group of papers.

The authors have defended the papers as being decidedly “different,” but one of the latest retraction notes points to an earlier retraction by some of the same authors (including first author Giuseppe Derosa, at the University of Pavia in Italy) for publishing two papers that “contain considerable text that is duplicative.”

Inflammation editor in chief Bruce Cronstein, who retracted one of the six duplicated papers from the clinical trial, told us in August that he and the editors of the other journals were all contacted “en masse” by an author doing a Cochrane Review on hypertension, who noticed that all six papers were “nearly identical.”

Just recently, we received a statement from the authors — sent by corresponding author Derosa — which argued that even if six papers stem from one trial, each was decidedly “different:”

Continue reading Authors defend publishing clinical trial six times, even as they earn two more retractions

Is less publishing linked to more plagiarism?

glogoCountries that publish less science appear to “borrow” more language from others than other, more scientifically prolific countries, according to a new small study.

Using a novel approach of comparing a country’s total citations against its total published papers (CPP), the authors categorized 80 retractions from journals in general and internal medicine. This is a relatively small number of retractions from one specific field of research; still, they found that:

Thus, retractions due to plagiarism/duplication were 3.4 times more likely among low-CPP countries than among high-CPP countries.

The CPP authors’ suggested interpretation? Continue reading Is less publishing linked to more plagiarism?

Boldt’s retraction count upped to 94, co-author takes legal action to prevent 95th

Screen Shot 2015-09-16 at 12.12.13 AM

We’ve found two recent retractions and an expression of concern for Joachim Boldt, former prominent anesthesiologist and currently Retraction Watch leaderboard’s 2nd place titleholder. He now has 94 retractions.

One of the retracted articles contains falsified data, along with a researcher who didn’t agree to be a co-author, according to an investigation by the Justus Liebig University Giessen, where Boldt used to work. The expression of concern is regarding some questionable data. The other new retraction is actually one of 88 papers that a group of editors agreed to retract back in 2011, after they were “unable to verify” approval by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) for the studies.

One of those 88 papers, we’ve discovered, has still has not been retracted. According to an editor at the journal, they haven’t removed it because one of Boldt’s co-authors has threatened them with legal action. Continue reading Boldt’s retraction count upped to 94, co-author takes legal action to prevent 95th

13th retraction issued for Jesús Ángel Lemus

Proceedings of the Royal Society B- Biological SciencesA 13th retraction has been published for Jesús Ángel Lemus, the Spanish veterinary researcher whose work colleagues have had trouble verifying.

This paper was pulled for similar reasons as his other retractions: After retrying the experiments in two independent labs, fellow authors were “unable to arrive to any sound conclusion about the validity of his analyses.” 

Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences posted the notice September 16, three years after the paper received an expression of concern.

The retraction notice, signed by every co-author but Lemus, reads:

Continue reading 13th retraction issued for Jesús Ángel Lemus

Urologist makes what he calls “clarifications” to multiple articles

Screen Shot 2015-09-30 at 10.22.32 AMWe have discovered several errata for a New York City urologist, including in one paper that previously inspired one of our favorite headlines.

The latest development is pretty straightforward: Ashutosh K. Tewari has issued errata to multiple papers in two journals that note changes to some data points. But the backstory has some twists and turns, so you may need to read this one carefully.

We’ll start with the paper that might be familiar to eagle-eyed readers, on incontinence after surgery: “Effect of a Risk- Grade of Nerve-sparing Technique on Early Return of Continence After Robot-assisted Laparoscopic Radical Prostatectomy.” It was published in European Urology in 2012, and has been cited 21 times, according Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. Here’s the correction note (paywalled  — tsk, tsk):

Continue reading Urologist makes what he calls “clarifications” to multiple articles

Author objects to retraction for not “faithfully represented” immunology figures

The Journal of ImmunologyAll but one of the authors of a study about the immune response to H. pylori have agreed to a retraction in The Journal of Immunology, due to two of the paper’s figures not being “faithfully represented.”

Authors of the 2006 paper said they were unable to provide the original unedited scans “due to inadequate archiving dating back almost 10 years.” The authors — with the exception of the first author, Sushil Kumar Pathak, apologized for the error.

The notice, which has been appended to the pdf, reads:

Continue reading Author objects to retraction for not “faithfully represented” immunology figures

Following criticism, BMJ “clarifies” dietary guidelines investigation

downloadThe BMJ has issued two “clarifications” to an investigation it published last week that questioned whether the new U.S. dietary guidelines were evidence-based.

The article criticized several aspects of the new dietary guidelines, such as “deleting meat from the list of foods recommended as part of its healthy diets” — without, according to author Nina Teicholz, reviewing the scientific literature on meat. However, according to the clarification, that sentence should have specified “lean” meats.

After The BMJ‘s article appeared, an analysis on The Verge questioned whether Teicholz was guided by her own opinions. She’s the author of a book The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet. The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee also posted a lengthy “rapid response” — The BMJ‘s refined version of a comment section — to Teicholz’s article, saying it “strongly disagrees with many of the statements represented as facts.”

This afternoon, Rebecca Coombes, head of investigations and features at The BMJ, posted a response: Continue reading Following criticism, BMJ “clarifies” dietary guidelines investigation