We have an update on two papers about lung cancer screening by Claudia Henschke and colleagues that were subject to an Expression of Concern early last year.
The original Expression of Concern in Cancer read, in part: Continue reading ORI, OHRP find “some human subject issues” in Henschke lung cancer studies, but no evidence of misconduct
Last August, we reported on an Expression of Concern in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine for a paper on HIV and lung injury. The notice said that the University of Nebraska, home to several of the paper’s authors, had begun an inquiry.
Today, the university issued a statement on the case, clearing the researchers of misconduct: Continue reading University of Nebraska clears HIV researchers of misconduct
A case of alleged misconduct at the University of Washington in Seattle may finally be over. The Office of Research Integrity released its findings following an investigation into the work of Andrew Aprikyan, a former hematology researcher at the university.
The Aprikyan case has dragged on for a decade. In 2010, the university fired the scientist after a court denied his appeals based on allegations that they had denied him due process. As the Seattle Times reported at the time: Continue reading ORI rules in longstanding University of Washington misconduct case
A University of Wisconsin scientist who was found by the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) to have faked data in two papers, has had a second study retracted.
Here’s the notice: for “Secretory phospholipase A2 IIA is up-regulated by TNF-α and IL-1α/β after transient focal cerebral ischemia in rat,” by Rao Adibhatla and colleagues and originally published in Brain Research in February 2007: Continue reading Second retraction appears for University of Wisconsin neuroscientist who faked images
Rao Adibhatla, a University of Wisconsin scientist who was found by the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) to have faked data in two papers, has had one of those studies retracted.
Here’s the notice for “CDP-choline significantly restores phosphatidylcholine levels by differentially affecting phospholipase A2 and CTP: phosphocholine cytidylyltransferase after stroke,” by Adibhatla and a number of colleagues in the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC): Continue reading U Wisconsin neuroscientist who faked images has first paper retracted
Retraction Watch readers may recall that we have been frequent critics of the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC) — published by the American Society for Biochemistry & Molecular Biology (ASBMB) — for their opaque retraction notices. Such notices often read simply “This article has been withdrawn by the authors.”
But we are — despite what some might say is evidence to the contrary — eternal optimists, so when the ASBMB announced they were hiring a manager of publication ethics late last year, we cheered. (Patricia Valdez, a former NIH staff scientist, has since filled that position.) And today, we have another reason to say “Hurrah!”: JBC retraction notices will now include “additional details provided by official [Office of Research Integrity] ORI or institutional reports,” the journal tells us.
Here, for example, are five retractions in the March 1, 2013, issue by former University of Kentucky scientist Eric J. Smart, whom the ORI found to have faked dozens of images: Continue reading Another win for transparency: JBC takes a step forward, adding details to some retraction notices
On Tuesday, we reported on the case of Adam Savine, a former graduate student at Washington University in St. Louis who was found by the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) to have committed misconduct.
Today, Blythe Bernhard, of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, has an illuminating Q and A with Todd Braver, whose lab Savine worked in. Savine’s former mentor offers a few interesting details about the investigation into his former student.
Braver tells the paper that he’d had doubts about the integrity of Savine’s data as the student was preparing for his dissertation defense in August 2012: Continue reading Wash U psychologist sheds light on inquiry against former psychology grad student
The Office of Research Integrity says Adam Savine, a former post-doc graduate student in psychology at Washington University in St. Louis, committed misconduct in work that tainted three papers and six abstracts he submitted to conferences.
One of Savine’s studies that drew some media attention involved Diederik Stapel-esque research showing which brain region lights up when people see money. He was quoted in this 2010 article on Medical News Today saying:
“We wanted to see what motivates us to pursue one goal in the world above all others,” Savine says. “You might think that these mechanisms would have been addressed a long time ago in psychology and neuroscience, but it’s not been until the advent of fMRI about 15-20 years ago that we’ve had the tools to address this question in humans, and any progress in this area has been very, very recent.”
Apparently, now we know. According to the notice, Savine engaged in misconduct in research funded by four grants: Continue reading Wash U psych researcher cited in ORI probe, faces multiple retractions
The U.S. Office of Research Integrity has sanctioned Bryan William Doreian, a former postdoc in dermatology at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, for falsifying data in his dissertation and a 2009 paper in Molecular Biology of the Cell (for which it provided a cover image, at right).
ORI says Doreian’s bad NIH-funded data also appeared in a manuscript submitted to, but never published in, Nature Medicine.
Here are the papers cited in the finding: Continue reading ORI says Case Western skin scientist falsified data
Regular Retraction Watch readers may have noticed that many of the people whose fraud we write about are men. Certainly, the top retraction earners — Yoshitaka Fujii, Joachim Boldt, Diederik Stapel, and Naoki Mori, to name a few — all have a Y chromosome. But that doesn’t necessarily mean our sample size is representative.
Now along comes a study of U.S. Office of Research Integrity (ORI) reports suggesting that men are in fact overrepresented among scientists who commit fraud. In a study published online today in mBio, Ferric Fang and Arturo Casadevall — whose names will also be familiar to Retraction Watch readers for their previous work — along with Joan Bennett analyzed 228 ORI reports since 1994, and found that 149 — or 65% — were male. (The vast majority of the 228 cases — 94% — involved fraud such as falsification or fabrication, while the others presumably involved misconduct such as plagiarism.)
And it’s not just that there are more men in the life sciences. At every stage of a life science career, the percentage of males found by the ORI to have committed misconduct was higher than the percentage of male life scientists overall: Continue reading Are men more likely to commit scientific fraud?