by reason for retraction – Page 403

German defense minister Guttenberg resigns after losing his PhD for a plagiarized thesis

328px-Karl-Theodor_Freiherr_von_und_zu_Guttenberg — Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, photo by Peter Weis via Wikimedia

Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, who was stripped of his PhD last week after being found guilty of plagiarizing his law thesis, has resigned his post as Germany’s defense minister. According to Reuters:

“I was always ready to fight but I’ve reached the limit of my powers,” Guttenberg, 39, told journalists in a hastily arranged news briefing at the Defense Ministry in Berlin.

“I informed the chancellor in a very friendly conversation that I’m resigning from political offices and requested to be relieved. It’s the most painful step of my life.”

As we wrote last week, a Bremen University professor first discovered the plagiarism, which was then explored a wiki. The University of Bayreuth took away his doctorate on Wednesday the 23rd.

Alice Bell noted in a comment yesterday Continue reading German defense minister Guttenberg resigns after losing his PhD for a plagiarized thesis

22 papers by Joachim Boldt retracted, and 67 likely on the way

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.

Anesthesia & Analgesia has retracted 22 papers by Joachim Boldt, the discredited German anesthesiologist whose prolific career as a researcher has unraveled with stunning rapidity — and 67 more retractions are likely on the way from 10 other titles that have published his work.

The 22 retractions, announced Feb. 25 on the journal’s website, come less than a month after the state medical board overseeing an investigation into Boldt’s publications said that it was looking into more than 90 of his articles out of concern that he had failed to obtain proper approval from an institutional review board for the work.

The board, Landesärztekammer Rheinland-Pfalz (LÄK-RLP), investigated 102 articles. Investigators could not find evidence of adequate IRB approval for 89 papers; for the remaining, 11 had IRB approval and two did not require it, according to the A&A notice, which was signed by editor-in-chief Steven L. Shafer: Continue reading 22 papers by Joachim Boldt retracted, and 67 likely on the way

Crystal myth: 11 more retractions from crystallography journal after 2010 fakery

About a year ago, Acta Crystallographica Section E issued a bombshell editorial. The journal was pulling 70 papers from two groups of researchers at the same Chinese university after discovering that the structures they reported had been fakes.

As the editorial explained, the fraud was detected during a routine review of the structures by Ton Spek, of Utrecht University in The Netherlands. According to the editorial: Continue reading Crystal myth: 11 more retractions from crystallography journal after 2010 fakery

University of Sao Paulo fires professor after a retraction for plagiarism

February has turned out to be a bad month for people found guilty of plagiarism. On Friday, we covered the case of the German ~~foreign~~ defense minister who lost his PhD after his university became aware he had copied passages from newspaper stories into his thesis.

And now we’ve learned that the University of Sao ~~Paolo~~ Paulo (USP) dismissed a full professor earlier this month after an investigation into a study he retracted last year because parts of it had been plagiarized. It has also stripped one of the professor’s former students of her PhD. Continue reading University of Sao Paulo fires professor after a retraction for plagiarism

Ninth Bulfone-Paus retraction notice appears, in Molecular and Cellular Biology

Another retraction notice for a paper published by Silvia Bulfone-Paus and colleagues has appeared, this one for a 2005 paper in Molecular and Cellular Biology.

The retraction notice is brief but to the point: Continue reading Ninth Bulfone-Paus retraction notice appears, in Molecular and Cellular Biology

An unusual retraction: German defense minister zu Guttenberg loses doctorate over plagiarized thesis

When we cover plagiarism on Retraction Watch, particularly when it leads to retractions, we’re writing almost exclusively about science. But there’s a story about a retraction outside of the scientific literature that has been unfolding over the past week, and grabbing enough headlines, that we figured we should post something on it.

It was Bremen University’s Andreas Fischer-Lescano who discovered what he called “a brazen plagiarism” in German defense minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg’s 2006 law thesis, according to The Guardian. The minister was already a member of parliament at the time, and had apparently used sections of newspaper articles without attribution.

When the allegations first came to light last week, zu Guttenberg denied them. But a university ombudsperson began looking into the matter. And der Spiegel reported that zu Guttenberg Continue reading An unusual retraction: German defense minister zu Guttenberg loses doctorate over plagiarized thesis

Korean ENT journal retracts 17 papers, citing ‘overlap’

A Mongolian gerbil (from EdShal on flickr) http://www.flickr.com/photos/21507874@N07/2469088105

The Korean Journal of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery has retracted 17 papers, with the common theme of ‘overlap’ — almost always a euphemism for plagiarism, whether self or otherwise.

Published between 1993 and 2006, the articles came from a group of authors at the department of otolaryngology at Ajou University School of Medicine in Suwon, South Korea. Their topics range from “The Effects of Intratympanic Steroid Injection for the Patients with Refractory Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss” to “Study for Reversibility of Experimental Cholesteatoma Using Mongolian Gerbil.”

The retraction notices all read basically the same way. Here’s the one for the gerbil paper: Continue reading Korean ENT journal retracts 17 papers, citing ‘overlap’

TKO for knee replacement paper, but notice raises more questions than it answers

The journal Orthopedics is retracting a paper by Chinese researchers who appear to have been a little to hasty to submit their manuscript.

Titled “Comparison of the mini-midvastus with the mini-medial parapatellar approach in primary TKA,” the October 2010 paper purported to describe a prospective, randomized study comparing two approaches to total knee arthroplasty, or knee replacement surgery. The authors, from First Affiliated Hospital of Suzhou University, stated that “all knees were implanted with the same posterior-stabilized prosthesis by the same surgeon,” a Dr. Tang.

Having claimed to have separated the effects of the surgery from those of the prosthetic — in this case, the Genesis II device from Smith & Nephew — the authors said that the study was able to demonstrate that “the early clinical results are similar between the mini-midvastus and mini-medial parapatellar approach. The mini-medial parapatellar approach is easier to initially apply and provides better visualization for TKA.”

Except that it didn’t. Continue reading TKO for knee replacement paper, but notice raises more questions than it answers