Category: by reason for retraction

Cell paper, once plagiarized, pulled for dodgy figures

A while back (last June, to be precise), we wrote about a group of Japanese endocrinologists who found a creative way to up their citation counts using duplicate publication. At the time, the researchers were docked a 2004 paper in the Journal of Steroid Biochemistry & Molecular Biology that had self-plagiarized extensively from a 2003 article in Cell.

Well, skeptics of this new math take heart: The group’s publication total has fallen yet again. Turns out that 2003 paper — which has been cited 160 times, up from 144 when we checked last year, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge — wasn’t quite up to snuff, either.

According to the retraction notice for the article, “The Chromatin-Remodeling Complex WINAC Targets a Nuclear Receptor to Promoters and Is Impaired in Williams Syndrome:” Continue reading Cell paper, once plagiarized, pulled for dodgy figures

Japanese universities find pair of researchers guilty of misconduct in 19 papers

Kenji Okajima

We have an update in the case of two Japanese scientists who first came to our attention when they retracted a 13-year-old paper in the Journal of Neuroscience last year. Shortly after that, we learned, thanks to a report in Sankei Shimbun and a helpful Retraction Watch reader, that some 17 papers were being investigated.

It now appears that 19 papers by the two researchers, Kenji Okajima and Naoki Harada, ended up under scrutiny.

Nagoya City University said last week that their investigation had concluded that Okajima and Harada committed misconduct. The university dismissed Harada, whom they found guilty of misconduct in at least eight of the papers. The investigation couldn’t find any evidence that Okajima was directly involved, but suspended him for six months because he supervised the work. Continue reading Japanese universities find pair of researchers guilty of misconduct in 19 papers

Rheumatology retracts lupus-cancer meta-analysis over multiple errors

Rheumatology has retracted a 2011 paper with too many errors to correct.

According to the notice, the article, titled “Meta-analysis of systemic lupus erythematosus and the risk of cervical neoplasia’, by Hongli Liu and colleagues at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in China, seems to have been deeply flawed: Continue reading Rheumatology retracts lupus-cancer meta-analysis over multiple errors

Rabbits needn’t worry about cell phones’ effects on their sperm count, say three retractions

If you’re a rabbit and you haven’t figured out where to carry your cell phone, your front pocket is just fine.

That’s what you could reasonably infer from the retraction of a paper in the International Journal of Andrology purporting to show that mobile phones affected rabbits’ sperm counts. The notice, signed by the journal’s editor, Ewa Rajpert-De Meyts (we added links): Continue reading Rabbits needn’t worry about cell phones’ effects on their sperm count, say three retractions

PNAS author explains why she didn’t sign retraction notice for potential anti-cancer drug study

On Tuesday, we covered a retraction in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) involving zalutumumab, a compound once being developed for treatments of head and neck cancer. As we noted at the time, the authors decided to retract the paper because they no longer trusted the method they used. One of the authors didn’t sign the notice, and we’ve now heard from her about why.

First, a comment from lead author Paul W.H.I Parren, who tells Retraction Watch: Continue reading PNAS author explains why she didn’t sign retraction notice for potential anti-cancer drug study

Paper linking vitamin C and reduced asthma retracted after authors find “severe” problems with data

It’s never a good sign when a paper has “severe” problems with its data. But when even the researchers are at a loss to explain how those problems made their way into the manuscript, well, that’s downright alarming.

Consider: The journal Clinical and Translational Allergy has retracted a 2011 article by researchers from Egypt and Finland, who have been studying the effects of vitamin C on childhood asthma. In a previous article, published in 2009 in Acta Paediatrica, members of the team reported that Continue reading Paper linking vitamin C and reduced asthma retracted after authors find “severe” problems with data

Redox, redux: Journal pulls paper over data problems

Antioxidants & Redox Signalling has issued much more detailed retraction notice for a paper it pulled last year that was marred by duplicate data.

As we reported then, the journal’s initial notice for the 2011 article, titled “Inhibition of LXRa-dependent steatosis and oxidative injury by liquiritigenin, a licorice flavonoid, as mediated with Nrf2 activation,” was underwhelming:

THIS WORK HAS BEEN RETRACTED BY THE AUTHORS

Although we learned at the time that a reader, Paul Brookes, of the University of Rochester, had raised concerns about the article to the editors of ARS and other publications, we were glad to see that ARS has decided to make a clean breast of matters. The study has been cited by other papers three times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

Here’s the notice, from editor Chandan K. Sen: Continue reading Redox, redux: Journal pulls paper over data problems

Another non-unanimous PNAS retraction, for potential anti-cancer drug, after company’s method proves unreliable

There’s another non-unanimous retraction in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) this week, and this one involves an anti-tumor antibody that may not be what the authors originally thought it was.

According to the notice for “The antibody zalutumumab inhibits epidermal growth factor receptor signaling by limiting intra- and intermolecular flexibility:” Continue reading Another non-unanimous PNAS retraction, for potential anti-cancer drug, after company’s method proves unreliable

Authors retract paper claiming antidepressants prevent suicide

The authors of a study allegedly showing that antidepressants prevent suicide have retracted it over unspecified errors. Here’s the notice:

At the request of the authors and in agreement with the Editor-in-Chief and Wiley-Blackwell, the following article “Antidepressant medication prevents suicide in depression”. Acta Psychiatr Scand 2010;122:454–460 has been retracted. The retraction has been requested and agreed due to unintentional errors in the analysis of the data presented.

The original paper linked “data on the toxicological detection of antidepressants in 18 922 suicides in Sweden 1992–2003” to “registers of psychiatric hospitalization as well as registers with sociodemographic data.” It found: Continue reading Authors retract paper claiming antidepressants prevent suicide

A non-unanimous retraction in PNAS after authors are “unable to reproduce the data”

A group of authors has retracted a 2009 paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) after subsequent experiments suggested their original results weren’t holding up.

According to the notice for the paper, which has been cited 8 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge: Continue reading A non-unanimous retraction in PNAS after authors are “unable to reproduce the data”