The Journal of Neurochemistry has retracted a 2008 paper, “Toll-like receptor 3 contributes to spinal glial activation and tactile allodynia after nerve injury,” it had initially corrected — and how.
The correction, which appeared online in August 2010, was extensive: Continue reading Neurochemistry journal retracts paper after earlier mega-correction for an author who’s no stranger to errata
We’ve been watching with interest an unfolding flap about a controversial 2003 paper in the Archives of Sexual Behavior (ASB) by a prominent mental health researcher, Robert Spitzer, which suggested that gays could be deprogrammed by so-called “reparative therapy” to change their sexual orientation.
Spitzer, who was instrumental in the effort to extradite homosexuality from the realm of mental illnesses, apparently had developed serious doubts about the validity of his paper, which has been cited 47 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. His regrets came to light recently in a piece by Gabriel Arana, of The American Prospect, detailing his own unfortunate experience with “ex-gay” therapy. In his article, Arana says Spitzer requested that he
print a retraction of his 2001 study, “so I don’t have to worry about it anymore”? Continue reading Controversial homosexuality “reparative therapy” paper staying put despite author’s regrets
Normally we’d make hay with the following notice in Acta Biochimica et Biophysica Sinica — separating the wheat from the chaff, Love and Death, and all that — but, well, it speaks for itself (sort of).
A group of researchers in China have retracted their 2011 paper on the biochemistry of chloroplast in wheat: Continue reading It “takes a long time to have these experiments redone,” so group retracts wheat paper after reader challenges
A partial retraction has joined the ten retractions and five corrections of Anil Potti’s papers, this one of a 2008 paper in Molecular Cancer Therapeutics. The move comes 14 months after the retraction of the Nature Medicine paper upon which much of the Molecular Cancer Therapeutics paper was based.
Here’s the notice: Continue reading A “retraction in part” for Anil Potti and colleagues, in Molecular Cancer Therapeutics
If you’re a rabbit and you haven’t figured out where to carry your cell phone, your front pocket is just fine.
That’s what you could reasonably infer from the retraction of a paper in the International Journal of Andrology purporting to show that mobile phones affected rabbits’ sperm counts. The notice, signed by the journal’s editor, Ewa Rajpert-De Meyts (we added links): Continue reading Rabbits needn’t worry about cell phones’ effects on their sperm count, say three retractions
On Tuesday, we covered a retraction in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) involving zalutumumab, a compound once being developed for treatments of head and neck cancer. As we noted at the time, the authors decided to retract the paper because they no longer trusted the method they used. One of the authors didn’t sign the notice, and we’ve now heard from her about why.
First, a comment from lead author Paul W.H.I Parren, who tells Retraction Watch: Continue reading PNAS author explains why she didn’t sign retraction notice for potential anti-cancer drug study
It’s never a good sign when a paper has “severe” problems with its data. But when even the researchers are at a loss to explain how those problems made their way into the manuscript, well, that’s downright alarming.
Consider: The journal Clinical and Translational Allergy has retracted a 2011 article by researchers from Egypt and Finland, who have been studying the effects of vitamin C on childhood asthma. In a previous article, published in 2009 in Acta Paediatrica, members of the team reported that Continue reading Paper linking vitamin C and reduced asthma retracted after authors find “severe” problems with data
There’s another non-unanimous retraction in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) this week, and this one involves an anti-tumor antibody that may not be what the authors originally thought it was.
According to the notice for “The antibody zalutumumab inhibits epidermal growth factor receptor signaling by limiting intra- and intermolecular flexibility:” Continue reading Another non-unanimous PNAS retraction, for potential anti-cancer drug, after company’s method proves unreliable
The authors of a study allegedly showing that antidepressants prevent suicide have retracted it over unspecified errors. Here’s the notice:
At the request of the authors and in agreement with the Editor-in-Chief and Wiley-Blackwell, the following article “Antidepressant medication prevents suicide in depression”. Acta Psychiatr Scand 2010;122:454–460 has been retracted. The retraction has been requested and agreed due to unintentional errors in the analysis of the data presented.
The original paper linked “data on the toxicological detection of antidepressants in 18 922 suicides in Sweden 1992–2003” to “registers of psychiatric hospitalization as well as registers with sociodemographic data.” It found: Continue reading Authors retract paper claiming antidepressants prevent suicide
A group of authors has retracted a 2009 paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) after subsequent experiments suggested their original results weren’t holding up.
According to the notice for the paper, which has been cited 8 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge: Continue reading A non-unanimous retraction in PNAS after authors are “unable to reproduce the data”