Category: lack of IRB approval

Two journals of a leading microbiology society have retracted six articles by Didier Raoult after a university investigation found breaches of research ethics in his work. 

A seventh article by authors affiliated with the research institute Raoult formerly led was also retracted for ethical issues. 

In comments to Retraction Watch, Raoult, who has filed a criminal complaint against a scientist who found issues in his publications, called the retractions “just another form of science censorship” based on “complete ignorance” of France’s research ethics laws.

Continue reading Journals retract six Didier Raoult papers for ethics violations

Didier Raoult, the French infectious disease scientist who came to prominence for promoting hydroxychloroquine as a COVID-19 treatment, has lost two papers for ethics concerns after other scientists flagged issues with hundreds of publications from the institute he formerly led. 

Both papers, “Increased Gut Redox and Depletion of Anaerobic and Methanogenic Prokaryotes in Severe Acute Malnutrition,” and “Gut Microbiota Alteration is Characterized by a Proteobacteria and Fusobacteria Bloom in Kwashiorkor and a Bacteroidetes Paucity in Marasmus,” appeared in Scientific Reports in 2016 and 2019, respectively. They have been cited approximately 160 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science. 

The retraction notices, published Monday, were nearly identical. They stated: 

Continue reading Controversial French researcher loses two papers for ethics approval issues

Springer Nature will retract an article that reported results of a survey of parents who thought their children’s gender dysphoria resulted from social contagion. The move is “due to concerns about lack of informed consent,” according to tweets by one of the paper’s authors. 

The article, “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria: Parent Reports on 1655 Possible Cases,” was published in March in the Archives of Sexual Behavior. It has not been cited in the scientific literature, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science, but Altmetric, which tracks the online attention papers receive, ranks the article in the top 1% of all articles of a similar age. 

Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD) is, the article stated, a “controversial theory” that “common cultural beliefs, values, and preoccupations cause some adolescents (especially female adolescents) to attribute their social problems, feelings, and mental health issues to gender dysphoria,” and that “youth with ROGD falsely believe that they are transgender,” in part due to social influences. 

Michael Bailey, a psychology professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., and the paper’s corresponding author, tweeted: 

Continue reading After backlash, publisher to retract article that surveyed parents of children with gender dysphoria, says co-author

An alleged sex researcher with a history of making things up has lost a 2019 paper on the habits of people who have sex with animals over concerns about the ethics approval for the research. 

The paper, “Digital Ethnography of Zoophilia — A Multinational Mixed-Methods Study,” was written by Damian Jacob Sendler and a co-author, Michal Lew-Starowicz and appeared in the Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy. 

Despite an impressive-looking webpage, Sendler, in the words of Gizmodo reporter Jennings Brown, is a: 

serial fabulist. The accomplished doctor character Sendler has created has appeared in numerous media outlets—Vice, Playboy, Savage Lovecast, Huffington Post, Insider, Bustle, Thrive Global, Women’s Health, and Forbes, among others. Many of these platforms have published Sendler’s lies and publicized his bizarre and irresponsible studies on necrophilia, zoophilia, lethal erotic asphyxiation, and sexual assault. And until recently, he was soliciting patients through his website where he offered online psychotherapy and sex therapy.

Sendler, whose affiliation is listed as the Felnett Health Research Foundation, in Staten Island, N.Y., claims to have earned an MD and a PhD from Harvard: 

Continue reading Fake sex researcher loses zoophilia paper over ethical concerns

The authors of a study suggesting that a deep freeze might help reverse one of the curious complications of COVID-19 have put their paper on ice after determining that they lacked adequate ethics approval for the research.

“Whole-Body Cryotherapy as an Innovative Treatment for COVID 19-Induced Anosmia-Hyposmia: A Feasibility Study,” was written by a group in France led by Fabien D. Legrand, of the University of Reims. The article appeared online this January in the Journal of Integrative and Complementary Medicine.

The randomized study looked at the effect of cryotherapy in 45 people whose sense of smell had been disrupted by COVID. Two-thirds received either high- or low-dose cryotherapy – which Legrand’s team defined as exposure to “extremely low temperatures (−60°C to −110°C) in a double Cryoair chamber (MECOTEC, Pforzheim, Germany) for 3 min” – while a third were assigned to a control group. 

According to the investigators, whose affiliations included the French Society of Whole-Body Cryotherapy — and who nonetheless registered their protocol in the Iranian Registry of Clinical Trials: 

Continue reading Study of cryotherapy for COVID-19 anosmia fails the sniff test

A now-temporarily retracted paper about how gay men seeking sex on the beach is damaging dunes that was criticized for its language — and for not mentioning any ethical approval — did not need such approval, one of the study’s authors said.

The study was carried out in 2018. But the Human Research Ethics Commitee at ULPGC did not weigh in on the work until September 2021. Luis Hernández-Calvento, the corresponding author of the paper and a professor at Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (ULPGC), explained to Retraction Watch:

Continue reading “Sand, sun, sea and sex with strangers” paper did not need human subjects research protection approval, says author

A journal devoted to LGBT issues has retracted a paper on the “process by which transgender youth come of age” because “the reported outcomes can no longer be considered valid.”

The article, “Becoming trans adults: Trans youth, parents, and the transition to adulthood, Journal of LGBT Youth,” was written by Jonathan Jimenez, at the time a graduate student in sociology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV).  

The paper, which appeared in the Journal of LGBT Youth, was his first solo article, Jimenez tweeted when the publication came online in August 2020, saying he was “unbelievably happy” to share the news. 

Continue reading Paper on how trans youth come of age is retracted following ethics board investigation

An allegation of plagiarism in a paper about Covid-19 in people with diabetes led to a retraction, but not for lifted text. 

Earlier this year, the journal Diabetes Technology & Therapeutics, a Mary Ann Liebert title, published “No deleterious effect of lockdown due to COVID-19 pandemic on glycaemic control, measured by glucose monitoring, in adults with type 1 diabetes.” The author was Pilar Isabel Beato-Vi[accent over i]bora, of University Hospital Complex Badajoz, in Spain.

According to the article, the lockdown of Spain in response to the pandemic did not seem to make it harder for people with type 1 diabetes there to control their blood sugar. 

The finding made at least one headline, in Medscape, which covered the paper when it appeared online in May. 

But it also sounded alarms with at least one reader. As the retraction notice explains: 

Continue reading Diabetes-COVID-19 paper retracted for lack of ethical approval

Get it in writing. That’s the moral in a pair of retractions in different journals after authors claimed to have received oral — but not written — ethics approval for their research.

One paper, in the International Journal of Pediatrics, a Hindawi title, came from a group in Kuwait and Greece. Titled “Prevalence and associated factors of peer victimization (bullying) among grades 7 and 8 middle school students in Kuwait, the article appeared in February 2017.

According to the retraction notice: Continue reading Two papers yanked for lack of formal ethics approval