Category: by reason for retraction

Fujii retractions mount

Spring is a time of rebirth and renewal — and, if you are Yoshitaka Fujii, retraction.

We have seen retraction notices in two journals concerning papers by Fujii, the Japanese anesthesiologist who, according to an international group of editors, may ultimately lose some 190 publications to research fraud.

Otoloaryngology — Head and Neck Surgery last month had the following notice for a 2011 article titled “Antiemetic Efficacy of Low-Dose Midazolam in Patients Undergoing Thyroidectomy,” by Fujii and an M. Ikatura (who has not been accused of wrongdoing, as far as we know): Continue reading Fujii retractions mount

Brit psych journal retracts Stapel paper on the paradox of failure

In 2011, Diederik Stapel, a Dutch researcher who at the time was a shining star in the world of social psychology, published an article in the British Journal of Social Psychology with the counter-intuitive claim that failure can sometimes be more emotionally gratifying than success.

We’re guessing this isn’t one of those times. As readers of this blog well know, Stapel has admitted to fabricating loads of data. The BJSP has now retracted the article.

Here’s the notice for the paper, which has yet to be cited, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge: Continue reading Brit psych journal retracts Stapel paper on the paradox of failure

Skin in the game: Derm journal retracts identical cancer case study submitted by two groups at the same facility

It seems the faculty at Myongji Hospital, in Goyang, Korea, have some ‘splainin to do.

Two groups of physicians from the hospital, part of Kwandong University College of Medicine, published case reports on a rare form of basal cell carcinoma. Turns out they were writing about the same patient.

According to a retraction notice in the Annals of Dermatology, a publication of the Korean Dermatological Association and the Korean Society for Investigative Dermatology: Continue reading Skin in the game: Derm journal retracts identical cancer case study submitted by two groups at the same facility

Would you pay $63 for a retraction notice?

For $63 plus tax, you can have a single steak with a side order of fried potatoes and a wedge of crisp iceberg lettuce at the famed Peter Luger steakhouse in Brooklyn. Or you can get a peek at one measly retraction notice from Bentham Science Publishers (at least it’s BYOB).

To be fair, the publisher, based in the United Arab Emirates, does offer a free version of the notice on its own website. But Bentham uses the company Ingenta Connect as a go-between to collect fees —  some of which reach $100 per article, according to a company employee — and as far as we can tell, no such gratis access is available through the middleman. Neither does Ingenta direct readers to the free version in its landing page for the notice.

The article in question, “Solubilization and Amorphization of Non Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug with Low Molecular Weight Chitosan for a New Guar-Based Colon Delivery Formulation,” by Kadria A. Elkhodairy, Nahla S. Barakat and Fars K. Alanazi, appeared in the March 2011 issue of Letters in Drug Design & Discovery. The retraction notice reads: Continue reading Would you pay $63 for a retraction notice?

Retraction seven for Shouwei Han, this one in the American Journal of Physiology

ShouWei Han, who has been forced to retract six papers from various physiology journals following an investigation into his work by his former employer, the University of Louisville, has added another one to his tally.

Here’s the notice, from the American Journal of Physiology: Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology: Continue reading Retraction seven for Shouwei Han, this one in the American Journal of Physiology

Weight loss surgeon who made up data loses job at University Hospital Leipzig

Edward Shang

Edward Shang, a weight loss surgeon who has now retracted two papers for fraudulent data, is out of his job at the University Hospital Leipzig.

According to a university release — which was apparently retracted for about an hour and which we’ve had trouble accessing at various points this morning — Shang’s employment contract with the Leipzig hospital is “terminated by mutual agreement with immediate effect.”

The release also says Continue reading Weight loss surgeon who made up data loses job at University Hospital Leipzig

Fleetwood Mac, anyone? Landslides paper crumbles under weight of “significant originality issue”

As Stevie Nicks sang in Fleetwood Mac’s hit, “Landslide”:

Well, I’ve been afraid of changing, cause I’ve built my life around you ….

The authors of a 2010 paper in the journal Landslides might have taken those words a little too much to heart. Their manuscript, “Real-time slope water table forecasting by multi-tank model combined with dual ensemble Kalman filter,” purported to be an original paper — but it was really “Second Hand News,” to quote more Fleetwood Mac, the kind that might have “Murrow Turning Over in His Grave.”

According to the notice: Continue reading Fleetwood Mac, anyone? Landslides paper crumbles under weight of “significant originality issue”

Puzzling: Maybe weight loss surgery paper by author who acknowledged fraud is being retracted after all

We’ve been following the case of Edward Shang, a weight loss surgeon who has acknowledged making up most — if not all — of the patients in a now-retracted study in Surgery for Obesity and Related Diseases. Last week, we reported that Obesity Surgery, where Shang had published four papers, would not be retracting any of them. That’s what Surgery for Obesity and Related Diseases Obesity Surgery editor Scott Shikora told us in an email exchange (more on that below).

It turns out, however, that one of Shang’s Obesity Surgery papers had already been retracted, unbeknownst to us because the original abstract was not — and is still not — linked to the retraction notice, which reads: Continue reading Puzzling: Maybe weight loss surgery paper by author who acknowledged fraud is being retracted after all

He’s my editor, he’s my author, he’s my editor: A retraction reveals a tangled web

The June 2012 issue of Current Opinion in Critical Care has a retraction that might have been a rather mundane case of plagiarism but for the remarkably intertwined relationships of the authors of the publications involved.

Here’s the notice, which doesn’t attempt to broach the conflicts of interest (we can hardly blame them, as you’ll see): Continue reading He’s my editor, he’s my author, he’s my editor: A retraction reveals a tangled web

Obesity Surgery won’t retract papers by weight loss surgeon who published fake data elsewhere

Earlier this week, we reported on the case of Edward Shang, a weight loss surgeon who was forced to retract a study after it became clear that he had enrolled only about a third as many patients as he claimed — if he enrolled any at all. In that post, the editor in chief of Surgery for Obesity and Related Diseases, who retracted the paper, told us he had flagged the issue for Obesity Surgery editors, who had also published Shang’s work.

Yesterday, we heard back from the editor of Obesity Surgery, Scott Shikora, who tells us that he’s reviewed Shang’s four publications in his journal: Continue reading Obesity Surgery won’t retract papers by weight loss surgeon who published fake data elsewhere