A retraction appeared earlier this month in Retrovirology that we think could be a model for other scientists and journals facing similar situations. The paper by Canadian and Chinese authors, “The cellular source for APOBEC3G’s incorporation into HIV-1,” was originally published in January 2011 and cited just once, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. Here’s the notice: Continue reading A model retraction notice in Retrovirology
Category: duplication retractions
Reason behind opaque Antioxidants & Redox Signaling retraction notice revealed
There’s an unhelpful retraction notice online in the journal Antioxidants & Redox Signaling, a Mary Ann Liebert publication. The paper, “Inhibition of LXRalpha-dependent steatosis and oxidative injury by liquiritigenin, a licorice flavonoid, as mediated with Nrf2 activation,” has been removed from the site, except for the abstract, which now has this in front of it:
THIS WORK HAS BEEN RETRACTED BY THE AUTHORS
That, as we’ve said before in exasperation, certainly clears things right up.
But we found out the reason for the retraction from Paul S. Brookes, an associate professor of anesthesiology at the University of Rochester Medical Center. Here’s the letter he sent the editors of Antioxidants & Redox Signaling and Free Radical Biology and Medicine, an Elsevier title: Continue reading Reason behind opaque Antioxidants & Redox Signaling retraction notice revealed
A flying what? Symbiosis retracts paper claiming new species arise from accidental mating
In 2009, Donald Williamson made what many biologists said was an extraordinary claim: The reason caterpillars become butterflies is that two different species accidentally mated with one another. As Brendan Borrell explained at the time in Scientific American: Continue reading A flying what? Symbiosis retracts paper claiming new species arise from accidental mating
How do Croatian scientists deal with retractions and misconduct? A guest post by Mico Tatalovic
Today, we have the pleasure of presenting a guest post from Mico Tatalovic, who has just published a piece in the monthly magazine Tehnopolis on retractions in journals in his home country, Croatia. Here, he describes the reporting that went into that feature, which he says was inspired by Retraction Watch.
You may think that in a country with regular plagiarism scandals there would be many retractions. But a search for ‘retractions’ in the open-access depository of academic journals, Hrcak Srce, shows only two retraction notices among more than 70,000 articles in 271 journals indexed there.
There may be several reasons for this. Continue reading How do Croatian scientists deal with retractions and misconduct? A guest post by Mico Tatalovic
A retraction as a group’s papers on smoking and weight loss are too close for comfort
The American Journal of Physiology Endocrinology and Metabolism is retracting a 2009 article by Japanese researchers who appeared to be so fond of their data they published them thrice.
The paper, “Dual suppression of adipogenesis by cigarette smoke through activation of the aryl hydrocarbon receptor and induction of endoplasmic reticulum stress,” by Masanori Kitamura and colleagues, looked at the biochemical mechanism by which cigarette smokers seem to be able to keep weight off. It has been cited eight times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.
But according to the retraction notice: Continue reading A retraction as a group’s papers on smoking and weight loss are too close for comfort
That’s a Mori! Seven more retractions brings latest count to 30
The other day we reported that Naoki Mori had lost his 23rd paper to retraction for image manipulation and duplication. Turns out we were wrong by a pretty wide margin.
The International Journal of Cancer has retracted seven more articles by the disgraced Japanese researcher, all for the same reasons:
The following article has been retracted through agreement between the first author and several coauthors, the journal Editor in-Chief, Peter Lichter, and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. … After an investigation the retraction has been agreed due to inappropriate duplication of images and overlap with other published work.
The papers are as follows: Continue reading That’s a Mori! Seven more retractions brings latest count to 30
Mistaken notice as Ben Gurion researchers retract vitamin D paper for duplication
“Clare Francis,” a prolific pseudonymous Retraction Watch tipster, emailed us recently to flag a retraction in the Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (JSBMB) of “The anti-inflammatory activity of 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 in macrophages,” a paper by Amos Douvdevani and colleagues at Ben Gurion University in Israel.
Here’s what we found when we clicked on the notice for the 2007 paper, which has been cited 32 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge:
This article has been retracted at the request of the authors, in response to concerns raised by the research committee at the authors’ institution. The authors stated the committee had given approval but the committee states no approval was given. The research committee has asked the authors to retract the paper and the authors have agreed.
That sounded odd to us, since it was unclear what approval was needed, or hadn’t been given. Continue reading Mistaken notice as Ben Gurion researchers retract vitamin D paper for duplication
More on Hattori case from co-author: Did grudge lead to scientist’s fall?
We have an update on the case of Yoshiyuki Hattori, the Japanese endocrinologist who has had a half-dozen papers retracted because of issues involving reused data. We’ve reported on some of those retractions, and report on three new ones here.
As a trainee, Hattori spent some time in England, where he met Steven Gross, a prominent pharmacology researcher at Cornell. Gross was impressed with the young physician-scientist, and invited him back to his New York City laboratory to do a postdoc.
Gross’ name appears on one of the retracted articles, “NO suppresses while peroxynitrite sustains NF-κB: a paradigm to rationalize cytoprotective and cytotoxic actions attributed to NO,” which appeared in 2004 in the journal Cardiovascular Research and has been cited 42 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.
According to the notice: Continue reading More on Hattori case from co-author: Did grudge lead to scientist’s fall?
Third retraction from dismissed Montreal cardiology researcher Zhiguo Wang appears
Ten days ago, we reported on the dismissal of Zhiguo Wang, a Montreal Heart Institute researcher who had already retracted two papers because of image manipulation. At the time, an official said the institute had requested three more retractions, but when we asked which three papers, we were told:
As written in the press release, the MHI has requested the retraction of three additional scientific articles. We will not be able to confirm the name of the scientific articles and/or publications until confirmation of the retractions.
The first of those three has now appeared, in the Journal of Cell Science, for the 2007 paper, “The muscle-specific microRNAs miR-1 and miR-133 produce opposing effects on apoptosis by targeting HSP60, HSP70 and caspase-9 in cardiomyocytes.” According to the retraction notice — which is unfortunately behind a paywall (see update at end): Continue reading Third retraction from dismissed Montreal cardiology researcher Zhiguo Wang appears
Plant Science retracts paper for reused data, forged authorship
Moez Smiri, a graduate student in a Tunisian-French laboratory collaboration, clearly needed publications on his CV. But we wouldn’t recommend his solution to the problem.
Smiri used cut-and-paste data (his own, to be fair) to write a flurry of manuscripts that he sent around to a variety of journals, most of them deeply obscure. And, for a little gravitas, he also added the names of several co-authors — without their knowledge.
The result, from Plant Science: Continue reading Plant Science retracts paper for reused data, forged authorship