Category: misconduct investigations

Can universities claim immunity in misconduct lawsuits? What a recent ruling suggests

Callan Stein
Callan Stein

Last week, George Washington University (GWU), a private institution in Washington DC, settled a case with scientist Rakesh Kumar, who had claimed breach of contract and emotional distress following a misconduct investigation against him. But earlier this year, a judge dismissed another one of the scientist’s claims, after GWU argued it had the same “official immunity” the government enjoyed, since it also conducts research misconduct investigations. Does the ruling set a precedent? We spoke to Callan Stein, a lawyer who represents U.S. researchers in misconduct cases, who has discussed the implications on his law firm’s site.

Retraction Watch: Can you explain more about this “official immunity” the government has regarding research misconduct, and why the judge thought this applied to GWU, as well? Continue reading Can universities claim immunity in misconduct lawsuits? What a recent ruling suggests

A researcher sued critics of his work. Now he has 13 retractions.

Fazlul Sarkar
Fazlul Sarkar

A cancer researcher who sued PubPeer commenters for criticizing his work has lost six more papers, bringing his total to 13 retractions. 

Four of the new retraction notices issued by the journal Cancer cite an investigation at Wayne State University in Michigan into the work of Fazlul Sarkar and some of his colleagues. All the new notices, including the other two in Breast Cancer Research and Treatment, are for image-related issues.

Retraction Watch readers will recognize the name Fazlul Sarkar, who took PubPeer to court to unmask the anonymous critics whose comments cost him a job at the University of Mississippi. According to this document, Sarkar retired from Wayne State this year.  

Here’s the first of the four Cancer retraction notices, all of which were issued on July 29: Continue reading A researcher sued critics of his work. Now he has 13 retractions.

Researcher whose PhD was revoked is no longer at Harvard lab

mend.2016.30.issue-8.coverA research fellow at Harvard Medical School whose PhD was revoked last month is no longer working in his former lab, Retraction Watch has learned. 

An archived version of the lab site for Alfred Goldberg from December, 2015, lists Sudarsanareddy Lokireddy as a postdoctoral fellow; however, Goldberg’s current lab site doesn’t include Lokireddy as a lab member.

We contacted Goldberg’s lab, and he was unavailable for comment. We were told all of his lab members are on the current website.

Lokireddy has also logged his sixth retraction. But this case isn’t as straightforward as it seems.

Continue reading Researcher whose PhD was revoked is no longer at Harvard lab

High-profile Science paper on fish and plastics may earn notice of concern

science mag coverScience is considering adding an expression of concern (EOC) to a June paper that caught the media’s attention for showing how human pollution may be harming fish, following allegations of research misconduct.

A group of researchers allege the paper — which suggested fish larvae are eating small particles of plastic rather than their natural prey — contains missing data and used a problematic methodology. After the researchers submitted a formal letter (available here), Uppsala University in Sweden is now conducting an inquiry, the first step in determining whether to launch a formal investigation.

A spokesperson from Science told Retraction Watch that once the journal independently verifies that an investigation is underway, it will issue an EOC for the paper: Continue reading High-profile Science paper on fish and plastics may earn notice of concern

PhD student expelled for submitting paper without co-authors’ consent

PLOS OneA PhD student has been expelled from a university in China after publishing a paper in PLOS ONE without the permission of her co-authors, and using an external company to complete some of the work. 

PLOS ONE has now retracted the paper, noting that they were tipped off to the problems by a reader who raised concerns about some of the figures. The notice states that the study’s first author, Zhenni Zhang, takes full responsibility. 

The last author of the paper — Zongfang Li from the Xi’an Jiaotong University in China — told us Zhang was his PhD student who was close to completing her PhD, but has now been expelled.

Here’s the retraction notice, issued on July 25: Continue reading PhD student expelled for submitting paper without co-authors’ consent

Neuroscientist in Serbia earns 8th retraction amid investigation

RadenovicA neurobiologist has notched her eight retraction in the midst of an ongoing investigation into her work by her institution, the University of Belgrade in Serbia.

As we reported previously, a mass clean-up by the Archives of Biological Sciences (ABS), the official journal of the Serbian Biological Society resulted in six retractions of papers co-authored by Lidija Radenović. (Radenović served as vice president of the Serbian Biological Society until July 2014.)

In April, we reported that Radenović was about to notch her seventh retraction in Acta Neurologica Scandinavica; that paper has now been pulled, and ABS has retracted another one of her papers.

Here’s the retraction notice by ABS: Continue reading Neuroscientist in Serbia earns 8th retraction amid investigation

Who is Ranjit Kumar Chandra? A timeline of notoriety

R K Chandra
R K Chandra

Last month, Ranjit Kumar Chandra was denied an extension to file an appeal of his lawsuit against the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). It seemed to mark the end of a long fall for the self-proclaimed “father of nutritional immunology,” who has ended up with multiple high-profile retractions and on the wrong end of a costly libel lawsuit.

The case had a lot of twists and turns, however. So for your convenience, we’ve compiled a timeline of everything you need to know about the events that led up to the lawsuit — where it all began, and how it ended last July, when the Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruled in favor of the CBC, and the apparent epilogue this June.

In the 1980s, Chandra was a highly regarded nutrition researcher; in 1989, he was made a member of the Order of Canada. He authored over 200 papers during his time at Memorial University of Newfoundland. He has referred to himself as the “father of nutritional immunology,” but the link to his website no longer appears to be active.

Here’s how it all fell apart: Continue reading Who is Ranjit Kumar Chandra? A timeline of notoriety

Author pulls study for duplication, blames editing company

MedChemCommThe author of a paper about insulin has retracted it due to “extensive text and data overlap” with another paper.

In November 2015, MedChemComm issued an expression of concern (EOC) for the same paper. According to the EOC, the author of the paper, Yong Yang, flagged the paper to the journal, citing problems with authorship and portions of text overlap, which Yang attributed to an editing company.  

The editor-in-chief of the journal told us Yang’s institution — China Medical University — carried out an investigation into the case at the journal’s request.

We’ve also found a 2015 retraction for Yang, after he published a paper without the okay of his previous institution in Texas. 

Here’s the retraction notice: Continue reading Author pulls study for duplication, blames editing company

4th retraction for neuroscientist sentenced for fraud

Bruce Murdoch
Bruce Murdoch

A Parkinson’s researcher has earned his fourth retraction after receiving a two-year suspended sentence for fraud.

The sentence for Bruce Murdoch, issued on March 31, 2016, came following an investigation by his former employer, the University of Queensland (UQ) in Australia, into 92 papers. Murdoch entered guilty pleas for 17 fraud-related charges, which resulted in the retraction of three papers co-authored by Murdoch and Caroline Barwood, another former UQ Parkinson’s researcher who faced fraud charges (and was granted bail in 2014).

Now, a fourth retraction has appeared for Murdoch in Brain Injury, this time for duplication and failing to obtain consent from his co-authors.

Here’s the retraction notice, issued on July 11: Continue reading 4th retraction for neuroscientist sentenced for fraud

Against authors’ wishes, journal pulls study with errors, statistical mistake

Annals of the Rheumatic DiseasesA rheumatology journal has retracted a paper about treating knee pain after an institutional investigation found a mistake in the statistical process.

Over several months, the authors proposed a series of corrections to the 2014 study. However, the journal Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases (ARD) decided that there were “unresolved concerns” about the reliability of the data, and decided to retract the paper entirely, despite the authors’ objections.

Here’s the retraction notice: Continue reading Against authors’ wishes, journal pulls study with errors, statistical mistake