Category: disputed data

Marine mammal injury study retracted for using restricted gov’t data

Integrative ZoologyA 2012 paper that analyzed injuries to aquatic mammals in China has been retracted “due to the usage of restricted data from the Ministry of Agriculture of China.”

The authors — from Shandong University in China, The University of Hong Kong and the Peruvian Centre for Cetacean Research — “organized the collection of official documents related to strandings, bycatches and injuries of aquatic mammals in the waters of mainland China from provincial fishery administrations for the years 2000 to 2006,” according to the abstract. However, they may not have been supposed to do that.

Here’s the retraction notice from Integrative Zoology (which is paywalled, tsk, tsk):

Continue reading Marine mammal injury study retracted for using restricted gov’t data

Researchers call for retraction of NEJM paper showing dangers of e-cigarettes

NEJMResearchers and advocates are calling for the retraction of a 2015 letter in the New England Journal of Medicine that suggested that e-cigarettes are as harmful – if not more than – traditional cigarettes.

The NEJM paper reported that e-cigarettes expose smokers to significant amounts of formaldehyde, which the authors calculated could raise lifetime cancer risk by 5-15 fold compared to the risk for regular smokers. Critics, however, have claimed that to obtain such high levels of formaldehyde, the NEJM authors superheated the vapor from the e-cigs to levels that would create a well-known, acrid puff called a “dry puff.” This sensation, they say, is so terrible that no self-respecting “vaper” would consider repeating it. In other words, allege the e-cigarette supporters, the conditions described in the Letter—which was widely reported—were not relevant to human health.

This week, Addiction published a letter from critics of the NEJM paper, along with extensive supplementary materials, a reply from some of the NEJM Letter authors, and a response letter from the critics.

In their first Addiction letter, “Research letter on e-cigarettes was so misleading it should be retracted,” authors Clive Bates and cardiologist Konstantinos Farsalinos write: Continue reading Researchers call for retraction of NEJM paper showing dangers of e-cigarettes

Drugmaker accused of omitting side effect data from 2003 Risperdal paper

cover7607A 2003 paper may have left out potentially “significant” data on the long-term side-effects of an antipsychotic drug used in children, according to a former head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

As reported by the Toronto Star, David Kessler is alleging that Janssen, the maker of Risperdal (and owned by Johnson & Johnson), omitted data about the risks of the drug: In particular, that boys who use it over a long period may be at risk of growing breasts.

There’s anecdotal evidence of the side effect. One family claimed the drug had caused their son to grow a pair of 46 DD-sized breasts in a lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson, reported the Wall Street Journal in February. They won, to the tune of $2.5 million. The suit is apparently just one of 1,200 like it.

The abstract of the paper, “Prolactin levels during long-term risperidone treatment in children and adolescents,” published in The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, suggests that levels of a key hormone aren’t a problem in the long term:

Continue reading Drugmaker accused of omitting side effect data from 2003 Risperdal paper

Second correx for controversial paper on the financial benefits of climate change

Journal of Economic PerspectivesThe Journal of Economic Perspectives has published a second correction for a 2009 paper that argued that some amount of global warming could lead to economic gains.

The author of “The Economic Effects of Climate Change,” Richard Tol, a professor of economics at the University of Sussex, blamed earlier problems with the paper on “gremlins.” In a notice posted last year, Tol wrote that “minus signs were dropped”; he also added a pair of “overlooked estimates” and several recently published studies.

After the first correction was published, several people contacted the JEP to point out more issues with the paper. Editors worked with Tol and outside researchers to update the paper again.

Here’s some text from the newest correction notice:

Continue reading Second correx for controversial paper on the financial benefits of climate change

Retraction of monkey paper linked to problems at shuttered research institute

Veterinary Pathology.Evidence of poorly treated lab animals has led researchers to retract a 2014 article in Veterinary Pathology that explored the neurological effects of dehydration in squirrel monkeys.

The study was pulled after Frederick Wang, the former director of the New England Primate Research Center, unveiled reports of a dozen squirrel monkeys that were found dehydrated and dead in their cages or euthanized between 1999 and 2011.

Wang told the Boston Globe in April that “human error” and “inadequate animal care” might have compromised the results of the study:

Continue reading Retraction of monkey paper linked to problems at shuttered research institute

Journal quarantines MERS paper, posts EoC for “rights to use the data”

ES_anniversary_bannerEurosurveillance is investigating potential problems with study on the deadly breakout of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) in South Korea. The notice was issued after the journal discovered that study data might have been used without permission.

“Epidemiological investigation of MERS-CoV spread in a single hospital in South Korea, May to June 2015,” was published last month by a group of researchers at the Gyeonggi Infectious Disease Control Center in Korea, and details 37 cases of people at one hospital, one portion of the nearly 200 who’ve developed the new respiratory infection since the outbreak began. The researchers tracked the path of infection from one initial patient to 25 secondary cases, who then infected 11 additional people. As the researchers note:

Continue reading Journal quarantines MERS paper, posts EoC for “rights to use the data”

Food fight: Animal nutrition author disputes two retractions

LSA pair of animal nutrition researchers in India have now had a second paper on the nutritional value of a fungal treatment for wheat straw retracted, and one of the authors is very unhappy about it.

M.S. Mahesh of the National Dairy Research Institute at Deemed University claims a co-author issued “abusive letters” to an editor of the journal where the first paper was retracted (which said co-author denies), and that editors responsible for the second retraction removed the paper “unscientifically and unethically.”

The second paper, in Livestock Science, describes the treatment of wheat straw, a wheat by-product, with a fungus in an effort to improve the nutritional worth of the straw. It has a similar title, subject, and conclusions to those of a 2013 paper from the journal Tropical Animal Health and Production, which was retracted because the authors “had no permission to use the data presented in the Table 1.”

We described that earlier retraction from TAHP, and the similarity with this most recently retracted paper, in a post from early last year.

Here is the LS retraction notice for “Nutritional evaluation of wheat straw treated with white-rot fungus Crinipellis sp. RCK-SC in Sahiwal calves”: Continue reading Food fight: Animal nutrition author disputes two retractions

Forged author list blows up explosives contamination paper

WWII poster for Ravenna Ordnance Plant, via Wikipedia
WWII poster for Ravenna Ordnance Plant, via Wikipedia

An environmental journal has retracted a paper on a technology that helps degrade explosives released into soil, because the first author never got the permission of his “co-authors” — oh, and used data that were “illegally obtained,” according to one of the slighted co-authors.

According to the EPA, more than 30 sites around the country are contaminated by decommissioned explosives, including weapons plants and army depots. A major source of the pollution was workers washing out old bombs into “evaporation lagoons” and then burning the resulting sludge.

The site used for the retracted paper was Ravenna Army Ammunition Plant, a decommissioned weapons factory that stored explosive waste in unlined landfills. According to the EPA, “open burning was also a common practice.”

The problems with the paper in Water, Air & Soil Pollution were uncovered after the head of the company, University of Georgia (UGA) professor Valentine Nzengung, found the paper on ResearchGate. He discovered that first author Chunhui Luo had used (now out-of-date) data without permission, and added Nzengung’s name to the paper without his knowledge. The other author is another UGA professor, Walter O’Niell, who told us he was also not informed about the paper.

Nzengung gave us further details via email: Continue reading Forged author list blows up explosives contamination paper

Authors retract two spectroscopy papers when follow-up results don’t match

analytical methodsThe authors of two spectroscopy papers in Royal Society of Chemistry journals have retracted them.

Here’s the notice for “Determination of silk fibroin secondary structure by terahertz time domain spectroscopy” (free, but requires sign-in) in Analytical Methods, which is almost identical to this notice in Analyst: Continue reading Authors retract two spectroscopy papers when follow-up results don’t match

Quantum physics paper pulled for “serious theoretical errors,” notice accidentally paywalled

physicalreviewlettersA paper on photonic quantum walks has been retracted over a theoretical disagreement.

The notice is also paywalled, which the editorial director has assured us is a mistake that is being corrected.

We sent the COPE guidelines on retraction to the American Physical Society, which publishes Physical Review Letters. Editorial director Dan Kulp told us the paywall was the unintentional consequence of a web redesign, and that they are in the process of restoring public access to “all Errata-types, including Retractions.”

Here’s the rest of his statement: Continue reading Quantum physics paper pulled for “serious theoretical errors,” notice accidentally paywalled