The authors of a paper showing a link between immune response and depression requested a retraction after they realized they’d merged two spreadsheets with mismatching ID codes.
Here’s the notice for “Lower CSF interleukin-6 predicts future depression in a population-based sample of older women followed for 17 years,” retracted in February 2014:
Continue reading Bad spreadsheet merge kills depression paper, quick fix resurrects it
Benjamin Barré, a genetics researcher who recently set up his own group at the University of Angers, is retracting four papers he worked on as a graduate student and postdoc.
Neil Perkins, in whose lab Barré was a postdoc, and Olivier Coqueret, in whose lab he did his PhD, tell Retraction Watch: Continue reading Geneticist retracting four papers for “significant problems”
Rehabilitation Research and Practice has retracted a 2012 review article on stiff big toes.
The article, “Therapeutic Management of the Hallux Rigidus,” came from a group in India. According to the abstract: Continue reading “Substantial flaws” trip up big toe paper
The editors of PLoS ONE have issued an Expression of Concern (which seems likely to become a retraction) for a 2014 paper by a group of researchers in China who claim to have been led astray by a contractor hired to “edit the language” of the report.
The article, “Arsenic Sulfide Promotes Apoptosis in Retinoid Acid Resistant Human Acute Promyelocytic Leukemic NB4-R1 Cells through Downregulation of SET Protein,” came from a group in the Department of Hematology at the First Affiliated Hospital at Xi’an Jiaotong University, and was led by Yuwang Tian, a pathologist at the General Hospital of Beijing Military Area of PLA.
Or at least that’s what the manuscript eventually said. According to the expression of concern, however, that’s not what it said initially: Continue reading Wayward “contractor” prompts expression of concern for PLoS ONE paper on cancer cells
A 2011 paper in Science has been subjected to an expression of concern and has led to an investigation by the Texas university where the work was done.
Here’s the expression of concern, signed by Science editor in chief Marcia McNutt (and paywalled): Continue reading Chemistry paper in Science earns expression of concern for unreliable data
In our coverage Tuesday of the republication of the controversial retracted study of GMOs and rats by Gilles Seralini and colleagues, we wrote this about a strange passage in an editor’s note on the paper:
The republished study was peer-reviewed, according to the press materials, and Seralini confirmed that it was in an email to Retraction Watch. But we were curious what “any kind of appraisal of the paper’s content should not be connoted” meant. We asked Seralini and the editor of Environmental Sciences Europe, Henner Hollert, but neither responded.
Hollert has responded to the same question from Nature, which reports: Continue reading Republished Seralini GMO-rat study was not peer-reviewed, says editor
A Boston doctor indicted on charges of Medicare fraud in 2007 has had a paper relating to the case retracted this month.
Abdul Razzaque Ahmed was considered something of a miracle worker by his patients, treating two rare and disfiguring skin conditions called pemphigoid and pemphigus vulgaris. He used more powerful medicines than the typical course of treatment, including a drug normally used to treat cancer.
The initial indictment stated that Ahmed mixed blood samples to falsely show a “dual diagnosis” of both diseases, and prove to Medicare that they required the more rigorous (and expensive) treatment. It also alleged that he profited massively from the government pay-outs. He was convicted of obstruction in 2007; the other charges were dropped when he agreed to forfeit assets worth $2.9 million.
Now, a 2001 paper by Ahmed, which claimed fifteen patients had a dual diagnosis, has been retracted because the samples were all mixed. Here is the retraction notice from Clinical Immunology: Continue reading Alleged Medicare cheat loses paper for data mix-up
Pro tip: If you’re going to write about stalking, it’s probably best if you don’t get too close to your material.
That’s a lesson a group of researchers in Italy was forced to learn the hard way. They lost their 2013 article in Medicine, Science and the Law for being too similar to a 2008 paper by different authors in another journal.
According to the abstract: Continue reading Don’t walk this way: Stalking paper halted for plagiarism
Alfredo Fusco, who is under criminal investigation in Italy for scientific fraud, has had two more papers retracted.
Both are in the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC). Here are the two studies: Continue reading Cancer researcher facing criminal inquiry up to six retractions
In September, we wrote about the retraction of a physics paper for “a pattern that was unphysical.”
The team, whose first author, R.K. Singhal refused to sign the notice, has had another paper retracted, this one in the Journal of Applied Physics. Here’s the notice for “Study of electronic structure and magnetization correlations in hydrogenated and vacuum annealed Ni doped ZnO:” Continue reading Physicists with retraction for a “pattern that was unphysical” lose another for manipulation