Category: misconduct investigations

Swedish prosecutor won’t pursue criminal case against Macchiarini

Paolo Macchiarini

A Swedish prosecutor has announced she won’t continue investigating a former star surgeon who has since fallen from grace.

Paolo Macchiarini made a name for himself by transplanting synthetic tracheas. After multiple patients died, however, allegations against the researcher have continued to swirl. He was dismissed from the Karolinska Institutet last year, after it reopened its misconduct investigation. The Swedish prosecutor was investigating Macchiarini’s role in the deaths of three out of four patients he operated on five times between 2011-2013.

Although the prosecution concluded that most of the operations proceeded “negligently,” it could not conclude Macchiarini was criminally responsible.

According to the public prosecutor Jennie Nordin:

Continue reading Swedish prosecutor won’t pursue criminal case against Macchiarini

Early data on potential anti-cancer compound now in human trials was falsified, company admits

A pharmaceutical company has admitted that one of its former researchers falsified early data on a compound that’s designed to fight cancer, now in human trials.

The data, published as an abstract in August 2015 in the journal Cancer Research, reported a therapeutic benefit of acalabrutinib in a mouse model of pancreatic cancer. The compound, developed by the company Acerta Pharma, has also been the subject of additional trials published in the New England Journal of Medicine and Blood in 2015. The 2015 NEJM study, which had several authors in common with the Cancer Research abstract, showed the agent had “promising safety and efficacy profiles in patients” with relapsed chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

But an investigation into the data underlying the 2015 abstract shows some were falsified, prompting the journal to retract the abstract.

Ed Tucker, senior vice president of Medical Safety, Quality and Compliance at Acerta Pharma, told us that in August 2016 the company identified an issue with the data in the Cancer Research abstract and started an investigation:

Continue reading Early data on potential anti-cancer compound now in human trials was falsified, company admits

Journal adds concern notice to paper by psychologist Jens Förster

A social psychology journal has added an expression of concern to a paper by prominent social psychologist Jens Förster, whose work has been subject to much scrutiny.

This is the latest in a long-running saga involving Förster. The 2012 paper in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology had been flagged by a 2015 report describing an investigation into Förster’s work, which had concluded the paper likely contained unreliable data. Several other papers that received similar designations in that report have either been retracted or received expressions of concern (EoC).

The (paywalled) notice provides a lengthy explanation for why the journal chose to add an EoC, rather than retract the paper, as the University of Amsterdam had recommended. Here is an excerpt:

Continue reading Journal adds concern notice to paper by psychologist Jens Förster

“No wrongdoing had occurred,” says Karolinska, following investigation of cancer research

A journal has removed an expression of concern for a 2011 paper after Karolinska Institutet (KI) “concluded no wrongdoing had occurred.” 

In June, Journal of Cell Science (JCS) issued the expression of concern, after a reader contacted the editors with questions about the data in one of the figures. JCS investigated but could not resolve the issue, and in March 2017 turned the case over to KI where the authors are based.

The 2011 paper had already received a correction in 2016, citing inadvertent figure duplication.

In late August, KI concluded its investigation into the 2011 paper by last author Boris Zhivotovsky; JCS has now updated the expression of concern with a publisher’s note: Continue reading “No wrongdoing had occurred,” says Karolinska, following investigation of cancer research

Author blamed for misconduct in Cell paper declines to sign retraction notice  

Researchers have retracted a 2015 paper in Cell after an investigation revealed the first author committed misconduct.

According to the retraction notice, which first author Ozgur Tataroglu declined to sign, the researchers realized there was an issue with the 2015 paper when they were unable to replicate the findings. Corresponding author Patrick Emery and his team at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester reviewed the data and found “clear evidence” that Tataroglu  — who had been a postdoc in Emery’s lab — “had repeatedly misrepresented and altered primary data,” the notice states.

UMass subsequently conducted an investigation in which it “concluded that the first author committed scientific misconduct.”  

Here’s the retraction notice for “Calcium and SOL Protease Mediate Temperature Resetting of Circadian Clocks:” Continue reading Author blamed for misconduct in Cell paper declines to sign retraction notice  

UCSF-VA letters to journals offer insight into misconduct investigations

Earlier this month, we reported the retraction of several papers published by researchers with appointments at both the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and the San Francisco Veterans Administration (VA) Medical Center, led by a prominent urologist. Recently, we obtained the letters sent to the journals that retracted the papers, shedding some additional light on the case.

The most notable insight: The institutions couldn’t place blame for the misconduct that led to the three retractions on any one individual.

Through a public records request, Retraction Watch has obtained the letter sent to the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR) — which publishes Cancer Research and Clinical Cancer Research — as well as a similar one sent to the editor of the International Journal of Cancer. UCSF and the VA co-wrote both letters and sent them to request editorial action on articles that the research institutions had found to contain “clear evidence” of research misconduct.

Because the retraction notices for the papers published by Cancer Research and Clinical Cancer Research quoted the AACR letter heavily, there isn’t a lot more to reveal. But the letter does say that the committee “could not determine who was responsible” for the misconduct, even though the co-authors said it was Masahiro Sasaki, first author on both papers.

According to the letter, Sasaki:

Continue reading UCSF-VA letters to journals offer insight into misconduct investigations

Two more retractions for former US prof who altered dozens of images

Two journals have retracted papers by a biologist who was recently found guilty of misconduct by his former employer, the University of Colorado Denver, bringing the total to five.

The investigation report by UC Denver, which we obtained earlier this year via a public records request, had recommended one of the two newest retractions, which appears in the journal Hepatology. The other retraction, in the Journal of Immunology, was not flagged by the report — which found, among other conclusions, that Almut Grenz had altered multiple values in research that had already been submitted for peer review.

Here’s the notice for the Journal of Immunology paper:

Continue reading Two more retractions for former US prof who altered dozens of images

Bone researcher is up to 17 retractions

A bone researcher has lost three more papers for scientific misconduct.

The new retractions bring Yoshihiro Sato’s total to 17 and put him on our Leaderboard.

According to the retraction notices, Sato asked the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry to retract three of his papers “due to scientific misconduct.” In the letter, Sato—who is corresponding author on all three papers—explained he included co-authors without their consent and that none of the other authors listed worked on the study or article.

In May, the editors issued expressions of concern while they investigated (1, 2, 3), and last month, the journal retracted the three articles.

Here’s the retraction notice for “Amelioration of osteopenia and hypovitaminosis D by 1alpha-hydroxyvitamin D3 in elderly patients with Parkinson’s disease:” Continue reading Bone researcher is up to 17 retractions

Fertility docs said their study didn’t need ethics review. An investigation said they were wrong.

Arcispedale Santa Maria Nuova-IRCCS. Credit: IRCCS-ASMN

A journal is retracting a paper on the relative merits of one fertility procedure compared to another because the study never received ethical review or approval.

In the paper, “Intracytoplasmic morphologically selected sperm injection versus conventional intracytoplasmic sperm injection: a randomized controlled trial,” originally published Aug. 27, 2015 in Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology, the authors wrote: Continue reading Fertility docs said their study didn’t need ethics review. An investigation said they were wrong.

UCSF, VA investigations find “clear evidence” of misconduct in cancer papers

Earlier this year, the University of California, San Francisco and the San Francisco Veterans Administration Medical Center teamed up to write a letter.

Addressed to the editorial office at the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR), the letter, parts of which have been published in a retraction notice, contained information concerning two papers on genetic risk factors for a type of kidney cancer and a type of uterine cancer, respectively, published in different AACR journals over a decade ago by researchers affiliated with the institutions.

The papers had been at the center of research misconduct investigations at both UCSF and the VA and the investigations came to the conclusion that both papers contained:

fabrication or falsification of data that constitutes Research Misconduct.

Though one of the papers has been retracted, it’s unclear what will happen to the other. [Note: See update at the bottom of the post.] Continue reading UCSF, VA investigations find “clear evidence” of misconduct in cancer papers