Category: wiley retractions

Privacy breach prompts retraction of three papers from the trauma literature

ejpsychtraumA group of international psychology researchers is retracting three papers in the wake of revelations that they failed to adequately safeguard the identities of the patients who participated in the studies.

So far, only one article has been formally retracted. That article, “Combining biofeedback and Narrative Exposure Therapy for persistent pain and PTSD in refugees: a pilot study,” appeared last year in the European Journal of Psychotramatology. Its authors were Naser Morina, Thomas Maier, Richard Bryant, Christine Knaevelsrud, Lutz Wittmann, Michael Rufer, Ulrich Schnyder and Julia Müller.

According to the notice: Continue reading Privacy breach prompts retraction of three papers from the trauma literature

Ants in the past: Journal pulls insect-global warming paper after questions arise over results

insectscicoverA group of ecologists in Germany who published a paper on the potential impact of global warming on ants in the Harz Mountains — northern Germany’s highest range — have retracted the paper after becoming, well, a bit antsy about the validity of their findings.

The article, “Diversity of ants across an altitudinal gradient in and outside a spruce forest in the Harz Mountains, Germany,” appeared in August 2012 in the journal Insect Science, a publication of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The last author of the paper was Christoph Scherber, of the University of Göttingen.

We found the abstract of the paper on this site: Continue reading Ants in the past: Journal pulls insect-global warming paper after questions arise over results

Autism genetics papers retracted after fraud inquiry at NY research agency

GBBcoverA fraud investigation at a New York state research institution has led to two retractions of papers looking at genetic links to autism.

The 2011 papers, which appeared in Genes, Brain and Behavior, involve work conducted at the New York State Office for People With Developmental Disabilities’ (OPWDD’s) Institute for Basic Research in Developmental Disabilities, on Staten Island. The last author on both articles is Xiaohong Li, head of the institute’s cellular neurobiology laboratory.

Authors of retracted sex paper won Ig Nobel for MRI study of coitus — and had another retraction

bmj mri
Midsagittal image of the anatomy of sexual intercourse, from BMJ http://bit.ly/v2ZkxQ

Yesterday we reported on the retraction for data misuse and plagiarism of a 21-year-old paper on sex and female cancer patients. Turns out we missed a couple of rather interesting details about the authors of the pulled article.

One tidbit, for example, is that one of them, Willibrord Weijmar Schultz,  is science royalty, having been a member of a team that won the 2000 Ig Nobel prize in medicine. Their heralded study, “Magnetic resonance imaging of male and female genitals during coitus and female sexual arousal,” published in 1999 in the BMJ: An inside-the-MRI look at the human body having sex. Continue reading Authors of retracted sex paper won Ig Nobel for MRI study of coitus — and had another retraction

A masterbatch: More polymer retractions, gerontology journal lifts paywall, Microbiology notices appear

masterbatch
Germans and Italians are big masterbatchers. Click to enlarge. via http://bit.ly/100YBKB

Our mothers told us that if we used the masterbatch process, we’d go blind. And what better way to gather some updates to recent posts than to include one that involves said masterbatch process?

First, a retraction John Spevacek noticed when he tried clicking on the link in a Journal of Applied Polymer Science retraction we’d covered: Continue reading A masterbatch: More polymer retractions, gerontology journal lifts paywall, Microbiology notices appear

Two retractions in polymer journal, including group’s second for “pervasive misattribution of data”

j applied polymer scienceLast November, we wrote about the retraction of a paper from the Journal of Vinyl and Additive Technology for “pervasive misattribution of data” that rendered “the article’s subsequent discussion and conclusions meaningless and misleading.”

The group now has another retraction, for exactly the same reason. The new notice appears in the Journal of Applied Polymer Science, and the language is identical, because the two journals are both published by Wiley: Continue reading Two retractions in polymer journal, including group’s second for “pervasive misattribution of data”

Duplicate submission costs authors two papers on Parkinson’s disease

neuropeptidecoverA group of pharmacology researchers in the UK has lost two papers after submitting effectively identical versions to different journals — and getting them accepted, of course — just a day apart.

The first article appeared on the British Journal of Pharmacology‘s website on July 10, 2012. It was titled “Exendin-4 reverts behavioural and neurochemicaldysfunction in a pre-motor rodent model of Parkinson’s disease with noradrenergic deficit.”

Paper 2 appeared in the journal Neuropeptides in October, although it has an online pub date of August 24, and was titled “Exendin-4 reverses biochemical and behavioral deficits in a pre-motor rodent model of Parkinson’s disease with combined noradrenergic and serotonergic lesions.”

Continue reading Duplicate submission costs authors two papers on Parkinson’s disease

“Ephemeral nature” of samples — and co-author — leads to ninth Jesús Lemus retraction

j app ecolJesús Lemus — the veterinary researcher whose work colleagues have had trouble verifying, including being unable to confirm the identity of one of his co-authors — has notched his ninth retraction.

It’s a clear and comprehensive notice, from the Journal of Applied Ecology, despite the bizarre nature of the case: Continue reading “Ephemeral nature” of samples — and co-author — leads to ninth Jesús Lemus retraction

Lichtenthaler retraction count rises to 11

jpimUlrich Lichtenthaler’s retraction record is now in the double digits, with his 10th and 11th retractions coming in the Journal of Product Innovation Management.

Here’s one notice, for a paper cited once, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge: Continue reading Lichtenthaler retraction count rises to 11

Plagiarism: It’s just an “approach” to writing papers, right?

chemistry coverWe’ve heard a lot of rationalizations for plagiarism on this beat — “I didn’t know I had to cite that text”; “That author said it better than I ever could”; etc. — but here’s a new one for the wall of shame.

Chemistry – A European Journal is retracting a 2012 article, “A New Indicator for Potassium Ions at Physiological pH by Using a Macrocyclic Luminescent Metal Complex,”  by a group of Chinese authors who used the cut-and-paste method to put together their manuscript. That’s not unusual. But the notice is:

Continue reading Plagiarism: It’s just an “approach” to writing papers, right?