biomedcentral – Page 4 – Retraction Watch

Nutrition study pulled after statistical flaws emerge

A paper that suggested that eating flaxseed could reduce inflammation in men at risk of heart disease has been retracted, after researchers pointed out the paper’s flaws.

The retraction is part of a large initiative on the part of nutrition researcher David Allison and colleagues to clean up the literature, which we’ve previously covered. Regarding this paper, he told us:

When we looked at the study…it was very clear that the statistical methods used were not correct. These are not matters of debate or opinion, these are just…verifiably incorrect.

The Nutrition Journal published the paper in January 2015, and retracted it in June 2016, one day after publishing a letter by Allison and a colleague critiquing the paper.

Here’s the retraction notice for “Impact of weight loss diet associated with flaxseed on inflammatory markers in men with cardiovascular risk factors: a clinical study:” Continue reading Nutrition study pulled after statistical flaws emerge

Institute director loses third paper following investigation

An autism researcher is retracting a paper she shared with the director of a New York institute, following a misconduct investigation.

In 2011, suspicions raised by peer reviewers triggered the investigation into several papers by Xiaohong Li at the Institute for Basic Research in Developmental Disabilities (IBR) in New York. The probe concluded in 2013 that there was no evidence of misconduct, but the committee recommended the institute review all relevant papers. This additional review led to the latest retraction, the result of problems with figures which “underpin the conclusions of the study.”

This is Li’s third retraction, all of which she shares with W. Ted Brown, the director of IBR. The pair lost two articles in 2013.

Here’s the retraction notice for “Alteration of astrocytes and Wnt/beta-catenin signaling in the frontalcortex of autistic subjects,” published in the Journal of Neuroinflammation:

Continue reading Institute director loses third paper following investigation

Researcher hired lawyers to try to get journal to run correction he wanted

When a researcher suspected a paper on fireflies had borrowed some of its methodology, he called lawyers to help him convince the publisher to craft a correction notice that was to his satisfaction.

Although the authors submitted a correction to BMC Plant Biology acknowledging Robert Birch as the original author of some material, as we reported previously, the publisher instead issued an expression of concern (EOC), noting that there was an “authorship dispute.”

When our post ran earlier this year, we didn’t know why a request for correction had turned into an EOC, which — as its name states — is typically more cause for concern than a correction. We’re still not sure exactly why, but we have learned that Birch disputed the content of the authors’ suggested correction, and hired lawyers to try to change the wording. From his perspective, there are several problems with the paper, he told us:

Continue reading Researcher hired lawyers to try to get journal to run correction he wanted

Authors pull 4 papers from surgery journal for plagiarism

The authors of four papers have pulled them for “significant overlap” with other publications, as well as borrowing “large portions of text” — in other words, plagiarism.

Two of the newly retracted papers published in BMC Surgery also listed co-authors who were “not involved in the study;” a similar note appears for an additional 2015 retraction that we’ve found for one of the authors.

That one author is listed on all of the newly retracted papers: Bruno Amato of the University Federico II of Naples, Italy.

Here’s the retraction notice for “Peripheral blood mono-nuclear cells implantation in patients with peripheral arterial disease: a pilot study for clinical and biochemical outcome of neoangiogenesis,” which has been cited five times since it was published in November, 2012, according to Thomson Reuters Web of Science: Continue reading Authors pull 4 papers from surgery journal for plagiarism

Study on pregnant women with HIV lied about having ethics approval

We recently discovered a relatively old retraction notice — from 2014 — of a study on pregnant women with HIV.

The paper was retracted two years ago when BMC Research Notes discovered the authors falsely claimed they had obtained ethics approval from an institution in Kenya.

The study looked at the effectiveness of an antiretroviral therapy in 50 women who were receiving care at a center in Nairobi, Kenya. But the authors did not have permission from the center to use data from the women, nor the necessary ethics approval from Moi University to carry out the work.

Here’s the retraction note for “Effectiveness of option B highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) in pregnant HIV women:”

Continue reading Study on pregnant women with HIV lied about having ethics approval

Stem cell researchers fix two papers following PubPeer comments

A pair of stem cell researchers have earned two corrections, the result of images that were mislabeled, distorted, or compiled incorrectly, according to the notices.

Kang Cheng prepared the gels when he was a research fellow in last author Sanjeev Gupta‘s lab at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Gupta told us he reviewed the original gels, and the errors didn’t affect the conclusions in the papers, which were reproducible. He noted he believes the problems are the result of honest mistakes:

The errors did not confer any benefits whatsoever either for the papers or for Dr. Cheng.

On PubPeer, commenters have raised questions about the now corrected papers — along with several others on which Gupta is the senior author, but Cheng is not a co-author.

Edward Burns, research integrity officer at Einstein, told us that the medical school looked into an allegation of misconduct against Gupta:

Continue reading Stem cell researchers fix two papers following PubPeer comments

How much does a retracted result pollute the field?

When a paper is retracted, how many other papers in the same field — which either cite the finding or cite other papers that do — are affected?

That’s the question examined by a study published in BioMed Central’s new journal, Research Integrity and Peer Review. Using the case of a paper retracted from Nature in 2014, the authors found that subsequent research that cites the retracted paper often repeats the problematic finding, thereby spreading it throughout the field. However, papers that indirectly cited the retracted result — by citing the papers that cited the Nature paper, but not the Nature paper itself — typically don’t repeat the retracted result, which limits its spread.

Here’s how the authors describe their findings in the paper: Continue reading How much does a retracted result pollute the field?

Study on teens with scoliosis failed to seek ethics approval, erratum notes

After researchers failed to seek ethics approval for a study on teens with scoliosis, a journal has issued an erratum to the paper.

The journal is not retracting the paper outright, it says, because the study was non-invasive and likely would have received ethics approval.

During the study, teenagers with and without progressive scoliosis underwent a physical examination and participated in an interview along with a parent, with the goal of trying to uncover risk factors for the condition.

Here’s the full erratum from Scoliosis and Spinal Disorders for “Physical activities of Patients with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS): preliminary longitudinal case–control study historical evaluation of possible risk factors:”

Continue reading Study on teens with scoliosis failed to seek ethics approval, erratum notes