Jesús Lemus — the veterinary researcher whose work colleagues have had trouble verifying, including being unable to confirm the identity of one of his co-authors — has notched his ninth retraction.
It’s a clear and comprehensive notice, from the Journal of Applied Ecology, despite the bizarre nature of the case: Continue reading “Ephemeral nature” of samples — and co-author — leads to ninth Jesús Lemus retraction
No, not that Madoff.
We’re talking about Robert Madoff, editor of Diseases of the Colon & Rectum. His journal is pulling a 2012 paper by a group of authors in Spain who seem to have been unable to back up their findings when they were found to contain errors.
The article, “Perianal versus endoanal application of glyceryl trinitrate 0.4% ointment in the treatment of chronic anal fissure: results of a randomized controlled trial. Is this the solution to the headaches?” looked at what evidently is a significant side effect of nitroglycerin treatment for anal fissures: headaches. According to the abstract:
Ulrich Lichtenthaler’s retraction record is now in the double digits, with his 10th and 11th retractions coming in the Journal of Product Innovation Management.
Here’s one notice, for a paper cited once, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge: Continue reading Lichtenthaler retraction count rises to 11
The authors of a paper in Laboratory Investigation have retracted it after they were unable to “reproduce key experiments,” and discovered “several minor errors.”
Here’s the retraction notice for “Slug enhances invasion ability of pancreatic cancer cells through upregulation of matrix metalloproteinase-9 and actin cytoskeleton remodeling,” by Liqun Wu and colleagues of The Affiliated Hospital of Medical College, QingDao University, in China’s Shan Dong Province: Continue reading Failure to reproduce experiments, errors lead to retraction of pancreatic cancer paper
The journal Heart has retracted a 2012 meta-analysis after learning that two of the six studies included in the review contained duplicated data. Those studies, it so happens, were conducted by one of the co-authors.
The article, “Low sodium versus normal sodium diets in systolic heart failure: systematic review and meta-analysis,” came from an eclectic group of authors from the United States, Canada and Italy (the first author is listed as being at a Wegmans pharmacy in Ithaca, N.Y.). The paper, published online in August 2012, purported to find that: Continue reading Heart pulls sodium meta-analysis over duplicated, and now missing, data
For the second time inside of a week, we come to praise scientists who did the right thing when they realized their lab equipment or reagents weren’t performing as expected.
Here’s the retraction of a 2011 paper in Cerebral Cortex: Continue reading Scientists doing the right thing: Malfunctioning lab equipment leads to retraction of neuroscience paper
They say that a poor workman blames his tools. If you’re a scientist and you discover your tools don’t do exactly what you thought they did, however, the right thing to do is let other scientists relying on your work know.
That’s what the University of Auckland’s Nigel Birch and colleagues did recently, after a 2012 study they published in the Journal of Neurochemistry didn’t hold up. Here’s the notice, which we’d consider a model for retractions everywhere: Continue reading A model retraction in the Journal of Neurochemistry for “unexpected effect” of a filter
A group of Belgian researchers has retracted two decade-old papers in Arthritis & Rheumatism following an investigation and court case.
The papers involved the use of the drug infliximab — sold by Johnson & Johnson as Remicade — to treat Sjögren’s syndrome, an auto-immune condition marked by the destruction of exocrine glands that secrete saliva and tears.
Infliximab is not approved for Sjögren’s. Although the two now-retracted studies suggested that it might be helpful, subsequent data did not support those findings.
Neither, apparently, did the studies themselves. Here’s the retraction notice (it’s a PDF): Continue reading Authors retract two papers on Remicade following legal battles
Hiroaki Matsubara, a prominent cardiologist with five Expressions of Concern and two retractions for his CV, has another retraction.
As Larry Husten, who first reported the retraction at Forbes, notes, the notice for 2009’s “Effects of valsartan on morbidity and mortality in uncontrolled hypertensive patients with high cardiovascular risks: KYOTO HEART Study,” which appeared in the European Heart Journal, says very little: Continue reading Study of blood pressure drug valsartan retracted
A new study in Clinical Chemistry paints an alarming picture of how often scientists deposit data that they’re supposed to — but perhaps not surprisingly, papers whose authors did submit such data scored higher on a quality scale than those whose authors didn’t deposit their data.
Ken Witwer, a pathobiologist at Hopkins, was concerned that a lot of studies involving microarray-based microRNA (miRNA) weren’t complying with Minimum Information About a Microarray Experiment (MIAME) standards supposedly required by journals. So he looked at 127 such papers published between July 2011 and April 2012 in journals including PLOS ONE, the Journal of Biological Chemistry, Blood, and Clinical Chemistry, assigning each one a quality score and checking whether the authors had followed guidelines.
What he uncovered wasn’t pretty — and has already led to a retraction. From the abstract: Continue reading Study finds many authors aren’t sharing data when they publish — and leads to a PLOS ONE retraction