Category: by reason for retraction

And then there were none: Plagiarism forces retraction of metabolism paper with vanishing authors

N&MlogoNutrition & Metabolism has retracted a 2008 article by a dwindling group of researchers from Pakistan. We’d say it’s the equivalent of punting on first down, expect that’s what the editors probably should have done in the beginning.

As it happens, the journal seems to be guilty of delay of game in this case. As this blog post by Jeffrey Beall notes, allegations that the now-retracted paper was a verbatim copy of another article arose in 2010.

The abstract of the article, which is still available, reads: Continue reading And then there were none: Plagiarism forces retraction of metabolism paper with vanishing authors

Hanukkah it ain’t: Oil paper burns out as authors bicker

jos_63_2Forgive us for revisiting our family traditions, but the story of Hanukkah tells how the Maccabees managed to coax eight days worth of light from a day’s worth of olive oil. Some  Tunisian chemists are probably wishing their paper on olive oil had the same staying power.

But their 2013 article, in the Journal of Oleo Science — a publication of the Japanese Oil Chemists’ Society — has been retracted because the group evidently wasn’t much of a group after all.

The paper, “Effect of Storage on Refined Olive Oil Composition: Stabilization by Addition of Chlorophyll Pigments and Squalene,” purported to come from Ghayth Rigane, Mohamed Bouaziz, Sami Sayadi and Ridha Ben Salem, who work in Tunisia and have published together before on more than one occasion. As the abstract states: Continue reading Hanukkah it ain’t: Oil paper burns out as authors bicker

Immunology researcher with Expression of Concern has cluster of recent retractions, corrections

j heart lung transplantXia Jiahong, an immunology researcher at Huazhong Science and Technology University in Wuhan, China, who had a paper subject to a fascinating Expression of Concern earlier this month, turns out to have had a few other entries in his retraction and correction record recently.

Here’s a retraction in the January 2014 issue of the Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation, for “Combined treatment with chemokine receptor 5 blocker and cyclosporine induces prolonged graft survival in a mouse model of cardiac transplantation,” a paper first published in 2010: Continue reading Immunology researcher with Expression of Concern has cluster of recent retractions, corrections

IRB mishap costs MD Anderson team a paper on prostate cancer

bjuifeb14A group of researchers from MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston has lost a 2013 paper in BJU International for running afoul of their institution’s ethics review board, and of military reviewers, as well.

The paper, “Many young men with prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screen-detected prostate cancers may be candidates for active surveillance,” looked at prostate cancer screening in men 55 and under — considered young for the older-man’s disease. According to the abstract: Continue reading IRB mishap costs MD Anderson team a paper on prostate cancer

Failure to reproduce leads to retraction of Nature Chemical Biology herbicide paper

nat chem bioA group of researchers at Emory has retracted a highly regarded paper after being unable to reproduce its key results.

Here’s the notice from Nature Chemical Biology: Continue reading Failure to reproduce leads to retraction of Nature Chemical Biology herbicide paper

Brazilian researcher on 11 retracted papers loses academic post

ufmtDenis de Jesus Lima Guerra, a co-author on 11 chemistry papers that were retracted in 2011 for suspicions of fraud, has lost his position at the Federal University of Mato Grosso (UFMT).

Bernardo Esteves, who was first to report the news, writes (courtesy Google Translate) that the dismissal was Continue reading Brazilian researcher on 11 retracted papers loses academic post

Fraud, retractions no barrier to US cloning patent for Woo-Suk Hwang

science 2005Woo-Suk Hwang is having quite a comeback.

The cloning researcher’s fall from grace in 2005 and 2006 was covered worldwide, featuring two high-profile retractions from Science and convictions (now under appeal) on charges he embezzled government funds and broke South Korea’s bioethics law. But as Nature reported last month in a profile focusing on Hwang’s Biotech Research Foundation: Continue reading Fraud, retractions no barrier to US cloning patent for Woo-Suk Hwang

Dispute with “unlisted author whose claim to authorship could not be solved” topples cancer paper

cancreschCancer Science, the journal of the Japanese Cancer Association, has retracted a 2012 article by a group of researchers because, well, it wasn’t clear who made up the group in the first place.

The article,  “Antitumor activity of human γδ T cells transducted with CD8 and with T-cell receptors of tumor-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes,” appeared online in July 2012 and was written, ostensibly, by Takeshi Hanagiri, Yoshiki Shigematsu, Koji Kuroda, Tetsuro Baba, Hironobu Shiota, Yoshinobu Ichiki, Yoshika Nagata, Manabu Yasuda, Tomoko So, Mitsuhiro Takenoyama and Fumihiro Tanaka from the Second Department of Surgery at the University of Occupational and Environmental Health, in Kitakyushu.

The abstract states: Continue reading Dispute with “unlisted author whose claim to authorship could not be solved” topples cancer paper

‘Pseudoknots’ a pseudopaper, retracted for plagiarism

bioinformationlogoThe journal Bioinformation has retracted a 2009 article by a group of researchers from India.

The paper was titled “Targeting pseudoknots in H5N1 hemagglutinin using designed aptamers,” and was written by Priyanka Dhar, Sayak Ganguli and Abhijit Datta, of the Defence Institute of High Altitude Research and the Bioinformatics Centre at Presidency College in Kolkata.

Under a heading, “Reader Feedback”, the retraction notice states: Continue reading ‘Pseudoknots’ a pseudopaper, retracted for plagiarism

Psychiatric Times retracts essay on “satanic ritual abuse”

psych timesSome Retraction Watch readers may recall this episode, recounted in a recent op-ed by Lew Powell:

During the 1980s and early ’90s a wave of nonexistent “satanic ritual abuse” claims shut down scores of day cares such as Little Rascals, McMartin in California and Fells Acres in Massachusetts. In virtually every instance the charges lacked any basis in fact. Today no reputable psychologist or other social scientist will argue otherwise. The defendants were innocent victims of a “moral panic” that bore striking similarities to the Salem witch hunts 300 years earlier.

Psychologist Richard Noll found the charges troubling too, so he wrote a piece last year for Psychiatric Times because: Continue reading Psychiatric Times retracts essay on “satanic ritual abuse”