Category: author objections

Law student retracts paper from journal of Shariah law

syariahA PhD candidate in the law school of University of Malaya in Malaysia retracted a paper from a journal on Islamic law in governments, because he failed to add his deceased advisor as an author.

The paper, which calls government secularism in Bangladesh “shadow rather than substance,” was published in Jurnal Syariah, which translates to Shariah Journal. It is quite critical of the idea that the country’s Constitution can name Islam as the state religion while also claiming that it cannot grant political status to any religion.

Here’s the notice: Continue reading Law student retracts paper from journal of Shariah law

Hmm: Authors retract paper rather than allow discussion of politics of organ donation in China

transplantationOrgan donation in China, particularly the practice of using organs from executed prisoners, which the government pledged to stop by the middle of this year, has been a controversial subject. For a group of authors in that country and the U.S, a letter criticizing their work that introduced “the political situation of organ donation in China” was cause to retract their own paper.

Here’s the notice in question from Transplantation, for a study published three months ago: Continue reading Hmm: Authors retract paper rather than allow discussion of politics of organ donation in China

Bee researcher in the Congo blames “injustice, segregation and colonialism” for retractions, Science correction

j insect conservationA bee researcher based in Congo has had two papers retracted, and a paper in Science corrected, for various reasons including unreliable data. The researcher, however, blames colonialism.

M. B. Théodore Munyuli is at the National Center for Research in Natural Sciences, CRSN-Lwiro, D.S. Bukavu, Kivu, and studies the distribution and diversity of bees. Here’s the notice from Psyche: A Journal of Entomology, for a paper on which Munyuli is the sole author: Continue reading Bee researcher in the Congo blames “injustice, segregation and colonialism” for retractions, Science correction

Neurosurgery journal retracts spine paper for lack of attribution

bjneurosurgA neurosurgeon in the UK has lost his 2013 paper on spinal surgery in the British Journal of Neurosurgery for doing what appears to have been an end-run around the folks that did the work.

The article, “The management of spinal dural fistulas: a 13-year retrospective analysis,” was written by Denosshan Sri, of Addenbrooke’s Hospital, in Cambridge.

Here’s the abstract:

Continue reading Neurosurgery journal retracts spine paper for lack of attribution

Entomologist surprised to find name on now-retracted paper alleging fossils oppose Darwin’s theory of evolution

jblsThe Journal of Biology and Life Science, published by the Macrothink Institute, has retracted a paper that claimed “fossil does not provides [sic] the convincing and direct evidences for evolution,” for reasons that they left to us to figure out.

The entire notice for “Fossils Evidences (Paleontology) Opposite to Darwin’s Theory,” allegedly written by Md. Abdul Ahad, of Hajee Mohamed Danesh Science and Technology University in Bangladesh, and Charles D. Michener, of the University of Kansas, reads:

The editorial board announced that this article has been retracted on February 25, 2014. If you have any further question, please contact us at: [email protected]

Hanukkah it ain’t: Oil paper burns out as authors bicker

jos_63_2Forgive us for revisiting our family traditions, but the story of Hanukkah tells how the Maccabees managed to coax eight days worth of light from a day’s worth of olive oil. Some  Tunisian chemists are probably wishing their paper on olive oil had the same staying power.

But their 2013 article, in the Journal of Oleo Science — a publication of the Japanese Oil Chemists’ Society — has been retracted because the group evidently wasn’t much of a group after all.

The paper, “Effect of Storage on Refined Olive Oil Composition: Stabilization by Addition of Chlorophyll Pigments and Squalene,” purported to come from Ghayth Rigane, Mohamed Bouaziz, Sami Sayadi and Ridha Ben Salem, who work in Tunisia and have published together before on more than one occasion. As the abstract states: Continue reading Hanukkah it ain’t: Oil paper burns out as authors bicker

The Guardian retracts hotly debated post on Lisa Adams’ tweets about her cancer

guardianThe Guardian has removed a post about Lisa Bonchek Adams, a woman who has been tweeting her experiences with stage 4 breast cancer, after it and a related piece in The New York Times ignited a firestorm of online criticism.

The Atlantic’s Megan Garber describes the two pieces — one, by Emma Keller, and the other by her husband Bill Keller, former executive editor of The New York Times — this way: Continue reading The Guardian retracts hotly debated post on Lisa Adams’ tweets about her cancer

Author dispute leads to retraction of neurology paper

cjnsCall us old-fashioned, but we think that if a group of authors set out to write an article about a viewpoint, they probably ought to share that viewpoint.

But that’s not the case with a bunch of researchers led by Tjaard Ubbo Hoogenraad, a neurologist in the Netherlands specializing in Alzheimer’s disease. The study, “A Viewpoint about the Treatment of Wilson’s Disease,” appeared in the July 2013 issue of the Canadian Journal of Neurological Sciences.  (Wilson’s disease is a rare genetic disorder in which the body loses the ability to get rid of copper, which in turn accumulates with toxic effect in tissues.)

Evidently, that viewpoint wasn’t quite shared. According to the retraction notice:  Continue reading Author dispute leads to retraction of neurology paper

Study on douches and delivery retracted for authorship issue

jlgtdThe Journal of Lower Genital Tract Disease is retracting a paper it published online in April by a group of Egyptian researchers in the wake of a dispute they couldn’t resolve.

The article, “The Patterns and Criteria of Vaginal Douching and the Risk of Preterm Labor Among Upper Egypt Women,” came from a team at Assiut University. According to the abstract: Continue reading Study on douches and delivery retracted for authorship issue

Anticancer-fungus paper retracted because some of the results “may be inaccurate”

biomacroMaybe it was a case of hitting the “send” button a bit too soon, or maybe it was a spasm of seller’s remorse, but a group of Chinese researchers has retracted a paper they’d published preliminarily a few months earlier.

The paper, “Antitumor and immunomodulatory activity of a polysaccharide from fungus Coprinus comatus (Mull.:Fr.) Gray,” by a group from various institutions in Shaanxi, appeared in April on the website of International Journal of Biological Macromolecules (as what appears to have been an uncorrected proof). But that didn’t stick.

According to a retraction notice dated August 2nd: Continue reading Anticancer-fungus paper retracted because some of the results “may be inaccurate”