Category: by reason for retraction

More on SPIROCOR noninvasive heart disease test: Second retraction (in fact the first) says little

Since we first wrote about the travails of Spirocor’s bedside, noninvasive test for coronary artery disease, we’ve been trying, without much success, to find out more information.

But as they say about every dog, our day has come.

As we initially reported, Ron Waksman, a prominent Washington, D.C. cardiologist and editor-in-chief of Cardiovascular and Revascularization Medicine, was first author of one of two papers about the Spirocor technology that were published in 2010. The other, by Shiyovich, et al, was retracted earlier this month by the American Journal of the Medical Sciences, which triggered our interest in this case.

At the time, we couldn’t find any evidence that Waksman’s article had been retracted, and Waksman has not responded to multiple requests for comment. Today we spoke with Kate Coons, the journal’s managing editor, who told us that the authors had sought a retraction for the article, “An innovative noninvasive respiratory stress test indicates significant coronary artery disease,” in December, and that it had posted one on its website on Jan. 6 of this year. It will be in print in an upcoming issue.

The notice is not available on Medline, but it can be found on ScienceDirect: Continue reading More on SPIROCOR noninvasive heart disease test: Second retraction (in fact the first) says little

Update on mysterious JACI retraction: Data were falsified

Since the weekend, we’ve been trying to get more details on a somewhat mysterious retraction in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. The sparse notice really only said that there were “data inconsistencies” that made the data unreliable.

On Monday, as we noted in an update to the post yesterday, we learned:

The inconsistencies related to what an individual’s lab-book recorded in terms of patients and infections. These came to light when this data was compared to hospital records, during the process of manuscript preparation. As noted, we reported our concerns about the validity of the data and following a review, there was no adequate explanation and the concerns remained.

We still couldn’t tell whether this was error or falsification. Late last night, we got the answer from co-author Euan Tovey: Continue reading Update on mysterious JACI retraction: Data were falsified

Bulfone-Paus retraction notice appears in the Journal of Biological Chemistry

Silvia Bulfone-Paus

Another retraction notice for a paper by Silvia Bulfone-Paus and colleagues has appeared, this one for a 2007 paper in the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC), “Soluble IL-15Rα is generated by alternative splicing or proteolytic cleavage and forms functional complexes with Il-15.”

This is the sixth retraction notice of a promised 12 in several journals. The original paper has been cited 37 times,  according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

Some of the notices have gone into great detail about what was wrong with the original papers, and journals have even allowed the team to declare that some of the results had been replicated. One simply said there had been misconduct.

Then there’s this one: Continue reading Bulfone-Paus retraction notice appears in the Journal of Biological Chemistry

A mysterious retraction in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology

The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology has retracted a 2009 abstract, but don’t ask us why. The retraction notice for “Children with asthma and no URTI, more commonly have rhinovirus in their exhaled breath, than in mucous,” is another one we’ll file under “opaque“: Continue reading A mysterious retraction in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology

University of East London “looking into” Jatinder Ahluwalia’s career

We’re continuing to follow the case of Jatinder Ahluwalia. As we reported on Tuesday, Ahluwalia was dismissed from graduate school at the University of Cambridge years before a University College London (UCL) investigation found had renumbered files to deceive a co-author, and had likely sabotaged his colleagues’ work while manipulating his solutions to improve how his results looked. The results of that investigation came to light as part of a Nature retraction.

Ahluwalia now works — and studies plagiarism, in fact — at the school of health and bioscience at the University of East London. We asked Neville Punchard, the school’s dean, whether the university was aware of Ahluwalia’s past. Punchard replied by email: Continue reading University of East London “looking into” Jatinder Ahluwalia’s career

Scandinavian Journal of Immunology publishes Bulfone-Paus retraction notice

Silvia Bulfone-Paus

Last week, we reported that the Scandinavian Journal of Immunology had noted that a 2002 paper by Silvia Bulfone-Paus and colleagues had been retracted, but hadn’t yet published the retraction notice. A commenter tipped us off this week that the notice is out: Continue reading Scandinavian Journal of Immunology publishes Bulfone-Paus retraction notice

Exclusive: Researcher found guilty of misconduct at UCL had been dismissed from Cambridge for data fabrication

Here at Retraction Watch, we’ve been following the case of Jatinder Ahluwalia with interest. You may recall that an investigation by University College London (UCL) found “beyond reasonable doubt” that Ahluwalia had renumbered files to deceive a co-author. UCL was also “highly confident” that Ahluwalia had messed with his solutions to make his results look better, and sabotaged his colleagues’ work. The report of that investigation was part of a Nature retraction notice.

We’ve now learned that UCL was not the first scene of misconduct by Ahluwalia. Yesterday, we obtained letters by University of Cambridge faculty and administrators describing repeated — and in the words of of one professor, amateurish — data fabrication by Ahluwalia that led to his dismissal from the university’s graduate program.

In a letter dated November 10, 1997, Martin Brand, then Ahluwalia’s PhD advisor, wrote: Continue reading Exclusive: Researcher found guilty of misconduct at UCL had been dismissed from Cambridge for data fabrication

“Biologist realizes he’s been studying Cadbury egg”: Mislabeled bottle leads to Phys Rev B retraction

The quote in the title of this post is a potential Onion headline that didn’t make it into print. It was part of an episode of This American Life that aired last week, and it seemed apropos, even though the subject here is superconductors rather than biology.

After all, we’ve written about a retraction that resulted from ordering the wrong mice. Today, we bring you the tale of a retraction caused by a mislabeled bottle. According to a retraction notice that appeared online last month in Physical Review B: Continue reading “Biologist realizes he’s been studying Cadbury egg”: Mislabeled bottle leads to Phys Rev B retraction

Unglaublich! Boldt investigation may lead to more than 90 retractions

Ludwigshafen Hospital, via Wikimedia http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Klinikum_Ludwigshafen_Nordseite.jpg

Self-plagiarism alert: A very similar version of this post is being published online in Anesthesiology News, where one of us (AM) is managing editor.

Unglaublich is the German word for unbelievable, and it’s an apt description for the latest development in the case of Joachim Boldt.

Boldt, a prominent German anesthesiologist, has been at the center of a research and publishing investigation since last October, when the journal Anesthesia & Analgesia retracted a 2009 article of his over concerns of data manipulation. This morning, the German medical board overseeing the case, the Landesärztekammer Rheinland-Pfalz (LÄK-RLP),  released its findings — and they are truly stunning.

According to LAK, somewhere in the neighborhood of 90 of Boldt’s published articles might require retraction because the investigator failed to obtain approval from an institutional review board to conduct the research.

We don’t read German. But, fortunately, the LÄK-RLP announcement was accompanied by a joint letter posted to the websites of 11 major anesthesia journals. We do read English, and here’s what that letter says: Continue reading Unglaublich! Boldt investigation may lead to more than 90 retractions

Three more Bulfone-Paus retraction notices out, in Journal of Immunology

Silvia Bulfone-Paus

The retraction notices for papers by Silvia Bulfone-Paus continue to appear. Yesterday, the Journal of Immunology posted notices for these three previously accepted retractions by the researcher, work at whose Borstel Centre lab is under investigation for misconduct.