Category: doing the right thing

Misidentified DNA leads authors to retract zebrafish cholesterol paper

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Authors are retracting a 2012 paper on cholesterol metabolism in zebrafish after realizing it included a case of mistaken identity in a DNA sequence crucial to some aspects of the experiment.  

A postdoc misidentified the plasmid in question after failing to fully sequence it before including it in the experiment. A technician in the lab found the mistake, last author Steven Farber, a researcher at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Maryland, explained:

When the omitted region was correctly sequenced we discovered it had an error.

He told us in a phone interview what that felt like:

We were like, holy crap.

Next came months of back and forth with the journal, discussing whether to correct or retract the paper. Farber tells us the mistake, which affects two figures,

was unfortunate. Most of the paper is in fact correct.

The paper, “Visualization of Lipid Metabolism in the Zebrafish Intestine Reveals a Relationship between NPC1L1-Mediated Cholesterol Uptake and Dietary Fatty Acid,” published in Chemistry & Biology, has been cited 21 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

Here’s the detailed retraction note:  Continue reading Misidentified DNA leads authors to retract zebrafish cholesterol paper

Neuroanatomy paper riddled with errors pulled by authors

Journal-of-NeurosurgeryAuthors have retracted a paper from the Journal of Neurosurgery that contained many errors, including mislabeled figures, anatomical errors, and mismatched citations. They said that the paper’s preparation was rushed and not all authors had a chance to verify that it was accurate.

Two of the authors of the paper had previously contacted the journal to request the paper be withdrawn. Jo Ann Eliason, communications manager for the Journal of Neurosurgery, said that the withdrawal request came too late, since the paper had already been published online: Continue reading Neuroanatomy paper riddled with errors pulled by authors

E. coli gene paper falls to mistaken mutation

asmcoverResearchers in Germany have retracted their 2011 article in the Journal of Bacteriology after another lab pointed out a fatal error in the paper.

The article, “Escherichia coli Exports Cyclic AMP via TolC,” came from a group at Tübingen University led by Klaus Hantke. The paper focuses on the crucial role of the membrane channel TolC in exporting cyclic AMP (cAMP)-cAMP receptor protein (CRP) complex, which regulates nearly 200 E. coli genes. According to the abstract:

The data demonstrate that export of cAMP via TolC is a most efficient way of E. coli to lower high concentrations of cAMP in the cell and maintain its sensitivity in changing metabolic environments.

But the conclusions rested on a gene mutation that wasn’t quite what it seemed. Here’s the notice: Continue reading E. coli gene paper falls to mistaken mutation

Astrophysicists issue two detailed corrections

1.coverA group of astrophysicists has notched a pair of corrections for papers on galaxy clusters, thanks to an error that affected several figures in the papers, but not the overall conclusions.

The errors came in the catalog of “mock” galaxies that first author Fabio Zandanel, a postdoc at the University of Amsterdam, created to model features that are found in clusters of galaxies. Two mistakes canceled each other out “almost perfectly,” says Zandanel, making the changes that resulted from them subtle.

Zandanel explained the errors to us:

Continue reading Astrophysicists issue two detailed corrections

Five years after a retraction, company’s stock is up more than 500%

wntloggawntresearchwebny1Is ethical behavior good for business?

Five years ago this month, Swedish pharmaceutical company WntResearch immediately notified shareholders when authors retracted a 2009 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) paper on a potential cancer therapy that was key to the company’s business.

At the time, the company’s decision to disclose the retraction hurt its finances, as WntResearch delayed its planned initial public offering for three weeks. It also offered investors and shareholders the opportunity to withdraw their shares of WntResearch stock.

But, aside from one of the paper’s co-authors, “No one did that,” Nils Brünner, WntResearch’s CEO, told us. Since the company’s IPO on December 17, 2010, its stock price has increased from Continue reading Five years after a retraction, company’s stock is up more than 500%

Chemists pull non-reproducible paper on method to make opal films

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When two chemists based in China couldn’t reproduce experiments in their paper on opal films, they retracted it.

As the retraction note explains:

In this article we report a method to fabricate 2D TiO2–WO3 composite inverse opal films via a mechanical co-assembly route with a template of polystyrene spheres. Upon repeating the experiments described, we found that this was not an effective method for forming the films; often the film was broken or did not form at all.

The note also explains why the experiment didn’t work:

Continue reading Chemists pull non-reproducible paper on method to make opal films

Prominent nutrition researcher Marion Nestle retracting recent article

jphp_journal_coverProminent nutrition expert Marion Nestle is pulling an opinion piece she recently co-authored in the Journal of Public Health Policy following revelations that the piece contained multiple factual errors and failed to reveal her co-author’s ties to one of the subjects of the article.

The article, “The food industry and conflicts of interest in nutrition research: A Latin American perspective,” was published October 29 and raised concerns about the conflicts of interest that can occur when a food company pairs with a public health organization. Specifically, the article critiqued the supposed relationship between the biggest beverage distributor in Guatemala and the leading Guatemala-based public health organization, aligned to distribute a fortified supplement for undernourished children.

However, after the paper appeared, Nestle learned they had misrepresented the relationship between the key parties, and failed to disclose that her co-author, Joaquin Barnoya, received “a substantial portion of his salary” from INCAP. Retracting the opinion was the best solution, Nestle wrote on her blog today: Continue reading Prominent nutrition researcher Marion Nestle retracting recent article

Black hole paper by teenaged prodigy retracted for duplication

Screen Shot 2015-11-25 at 8.39.44 AMAn astrophysics journal is retracting a paper on black holes whose first author is a teenager about to earn his PhD, after learning the paper “draws extensively” from a book chapter by the last author.

Many papers are pulled for duplication, but few get a news release from the publisher about it. In a move that we approve of, the editors of The Astrophysical Journal announced the forthcoming retraction on the American Astronomical Society (AAS) website.

The paper‘s first author Song Yoo-Geun who turns 18 this month, and is on track to earn his doctorate next year from the University of Science and Technology in South Korea. According to the news release, the paper borrows heavily from a book chapter published in 2002 by his adviser and co-author, Seok Jae Park at the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute.

AAS is handling this very quickly. The paper was published in October, someone alerted the journal to the duplication on November 14, and the announcement of the retraction went up on the AAS website just ten days later.

The retraction note for “Axisymmetric nonstationary black hole magnetospheres: revisited” will be published in the next issue of ApJ. In the meantime, the news release explains what happened:

Continue reading Black hole paper by teenaged prodigy retracted for duplication

Now this is good news: In policy change, JBC will now make retraction notices informative

47.coverReaders of this blog know that we have had a few stock villains over the years. High on the list has been the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC), and we’ve criticized repeatedly the journal’s unwillingness to provide any information about the reasons for retractions. For as long as we’ve been around, the JBC’s stock retraction statement seemed to be:

This article has been withdrawn by the authors.

Times have changed. According to an editorial published earlier this month, the JBC says it will now be giving readers as much information as possible about the retraction notices it prints. The editorial, written by interim editor-in-chief F. Peter Guengerich of Vanderbilt University, alludes to the heat the journal has been taking about its opacity: Continue reading Now this is good news: In policy change, JBC will now make retraction notices informative

Study claiming dramatically higher rates of male military sexual trauma is retracted

psychological servicesA study that found a 15-fold increase in the rate of sexual trauma among men in the U.S. military — and sparked suggestions of “an epidemic of male-on-male sex crimes” in the military among conservative media outlets — has been retracted because of a flaw in the analysis.

The study, published just last week, appeared in Psychological Services, an American Psychological Association (APA) journal. In an announcement Sunday titled “American Psychological Association Retracts Article Positing Excessively High Rates of Sexual Trauma Among Military Men,” the APA said that “Scholars raised valid concerns regarding the design and statistical analysis which compromise the findings.” Here’s the text: Continue reading Study claiming dramatically higher rates of male military sexual trauma is retracted