Category: by reason for retraction

Journal temporarily removes paper linking HPV vaccine to behavioral issues

1-s2.0-S0264410X16X00084-cov150hThe editor in chief of Vaccine has removed a paper suggesting a human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine can trigger behavioral changes in mice.

The note doesn’t provide any reason for the withdrawal, although authors were told the editor asked for further review.

Two co-authors on the paper — about Gardasil, a vaccine against HPV — have previously suggested that aluminum in vaccines is linked to autism, in research a World Health Organization advisory body concluded was “seriously flawed.”

Approximately 80 million doses of Gardasil were administered in the U.S. between 2006 and 2015. Both the the WHO and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have ruled the vaccine to be safe — the CDC, for instance, calls it “safe, effective, and recommended.”

The journal published an uncorrected proof of “Behavioral abnormalities in young female mice following administration of aluminum adjuvants and the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine Gardasil” online on January 9th, 2016. In its place now is a note that says:

Continue reading Journal temporarily removes paper linking HPV vaccine to behavioral issues

8th retraction appears for researcher who faked patient records

S00219150An 8th paper has been retracted for Anna Ahimastos, a heart researcher who faked patient records.

It’s the last in a chain of retractions that were the result of an investigation by her former workplace, Baker IDI Heart & Diabetes Institute in Australia. As with the others, she did not agree to the retraction.

The investigation found fabricated patients records in some papers; in other papers, such as the newly retracted 2010 study in Atherosclerosis, the original data source could not be verified.  The latest retraction — “A role for plasma transforming growth factor-β and matrix metalloproteinases in aortic aneurysm surveillance in Marfan syndrome?” — followed up on a previous clinical trial, examining how a blood pressure drug might help patients with a life-threatening genetic disorder.

That previous trial — which also included 17 patients with Marfan syndrome treated with either placebo or perindopril — has been retracted from JAMA; the New England Journal of Medicine has also retracted a related letter.

The latest retraction note conveys similar information to the other perindopril/Marfan syndrome retractions: Continue reading 8th retraction appears for researcher who faked patient records

Johns Hopkins investigation leads to retraction of two lung papers, one highly cited

showCoverImageAn investigation at Johns Hopkins University has uncovered several issues with the figures in two papers on a lung disease linked to smoking, one of which is highly cited.

The American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine is retracting both papers, which examine the role of protein NRF2 in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. But both contain spliced and duplicated figures, among other issues.

Both papers — which share a total of five authors — received an expression of concern in 2014, after the corresponding author noticed anomalies in the figures. That same year, PubPeer commenters had begun raising questions about some of the figures in one of the papers.

A spokesperson for Johns Hopkins declined to say whether the investigation considered if the errors were the result of misconduct.

All authors agreed with the retraction, except for one who couldn’t be located. Here’s more from the retraction note for both papers:

Continue reading Johns Hopkins investigation leads to retraction of two lung papers, one highly cited

Karolinska vice-chancellor resigns following criticism of Macchiarini investigation

Anders Hamsten
Anders Hamsten

Anders Hamsten announced he would be resigning as vice-chancellor from Karolinska Institutet (KI) in the early hours of Saturday, February 13.

In a press release we received at 12:16 a.m. local time in Stockholm, Hamsten issued the following statement:

Following the criticism on the so called Macchiarini affair at KI I conclude it will be hard for me to serve as Vice-Chancellor with the strength and credibility this university needs. I will therefore leave office.

Good thing we published a primer on the whole story a few hours ago. To recap: Continue reading Karolinska vice-chancellor resigns following criticism of Macchiarini investigation

Reading about embattled trachea surgeon Paolo Macchiarini? Here’s what you need to know

Paolo Macchiarini
Paolo Macchiarini

The media has been abuzz in the last few weeks with developments in the ongoing story about “super surgeon” Paolo Macchiarini. We’ve been covering the allegations against him for years (and invited him to publish a guest post on our site). Below, we present a timeline of recent events, to keep you abreast of what we know so far.

Macchiarini was famous long before accusations of misconduct arose, once-heralded for creating tracheas from cadavers and patients’ own stem cells. However, the glow of his success was diminished somewhat after some Karolinska Institutet (KI) surgeons filed a complaint in 2014 — alleging, for instance, Macchiarini had downplayed the risks of the procedure and not obtained proper consent. In response, KI issued an external review by Bengt Gerdin of Uppsala University.

Here’s what’s happened since: Continue reading Reading about embattled trachea surgeon Paolo Macchiarini? Here’s what you need to know

Journals retracts three bone papers for duplication by same author

1-s2.0-S0168365907X02700-cov150hA journal is Journals are retracting three papers after a biomaterials researcher duplicated his own work, sometimes using the same figures to describe different experiments.

Two of the papers are on bone regeneration; one is about targeting tumors. In addition to issues with figures, two one of the retraction notes explain that the papers contain “widespread plagiarism of text” from other papers by the researcher, Hossein Hosseinkhani.

Hosseinkhani is currently affiliated with the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology; when he did the work in the now retracted papers, published in 2004 and 2007, he was based at Kyoto University Hospital and then National Institute for Materials Science in Japan.

The Journal of Controlled Release published all three two of the papers. Here’s the retraction note for “Bone regeneration through controlled release of bone morphogenetic protein-2 from 3-D tissue engineered nano-scaffold,” which has been cited 118 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

Continue reading Journals retracts three bone papers for duplication by same author

Investigation leads to 5th retraction for drug researcher

Screen Shot 2016-01-26 at 6.05.21 PMA pharmaceutical researcher has received his fourth and fifth retractions for duplicating papers.

Last we saw Giuseppe Derosa on this blog, he was notching retractions after publishing results from the same clinical trial in six different papers; as part of that fallout, a journal has pulled a fourth paper associated with the trial.

Here’s the note for “Effects of an olmesartan/amlodipine fixed dose on blood pressure control, some adipocytokines and interleukins levels compared with olmesartan or amlodipine monotherapies,” which has been cited twice, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge:  Continue reading Investigation leads to 5th retraction for drug researcher

Journal retracts nanoparticles paper for duplicating figures

no spine minimum. full size. Editor: Ann Meares JEM: Diane RTP: Jill Kessler

A paper on nanoparticles that target cancer cells has been retracted for duplicating figures from three other papers.

The articles all share a first author: Manasmita Das, based at the time of the research at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur and the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER). According to her LinkedIn profile, she is currently a postdoc at the University of North Carolina.

The abstract of the 2011 Bioconjugate Chemistry paper explains just what the new nanoparticles would be useful for:

Multifunctional nanoparticles, developed in the course of the study, could selectively target and induce apoptosis to folate-receptor (FR) overexpressing cancer cells with enhanced efficacy as compared to the free drug. In addition, the dual optical and magnetic properties of the synthesized nanoparticles aided in the real-time tracking of their intracellular pathways also as apoptotic events through dual fluorescence and MR-based imaging.

But according to the retraction note, figure duplications “seriously undermine the conclusions presented in the research article.” Here’s more about the source of those duplications from the full note: Continue reading Journal retracts nanoparticles paper for duplicating figures

Researchers plagiarized chapter of doctoral thesis in mol bio paper

mol cell biochemA journal has pulled a paper about the molecular details of different types of adipose tissues after learning the researchers had plagiarized much of a Ph.D. thesis.

The researchers copied from former Ph.D. student Bettina Meissburger’s doctoral thesis in a 2013 paper in Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry. The retraction note for “Adipose stromal-vascular fraction-derived paracrine factors regulate adipogenesis” provides the name of Meissburger’s thesis: Continue reading Researchers plagiarized chapter of doctoral thesis in mol bio paper

Why plagiarism is such a problem for German PhDs: Q&A with Debora Weber-Wulff

Debora Weber-Wulff, c. 2015 Nina Zimmermann
Debora Weber-Wulff, c. 2015 Nina Zimmermann

Why do so many PhD students publishing their medical theses in German resort to brazen plagiarism, even copying from people in their own research groups? We’re pleased to present a Q&A with Debora Weber-Wulff, based at the University of Applied Sciences HTW Berlin in Germany. She recently published a case study for the Council of Europe that shows a surprisingly high number of cases of plagiarism in medical PhD theses submitted to German universities, as well as a few in other European countries. Weber-Wulff is a member of the VroniPlag Wiki, a group of German-language scientists who have been scanning for — and publicly tracking — cases of plagiarism. They’ve published documentations on more than 155 cases so far, and begun investigations on over 200 more, including some very high-profile cases. We talked to Weber-Wulff about why plagiarism is such a problem in German medical PhD programs.

Retraction Watch: You note that German medical dissertations aren’t taken seriously, relative to many other countries. Why is that? Continue reading Why plagiarism is such a problem for German PhDs: Q&A with Debora Weber-Wulff