by reason for retraction – Page 53

‘[A] disappointing situation’: Stem cell group retracts with ‘rectitude’ after error

A team of stem cell researchers at the University of Maryland has lost a 2020 paper after failing to correct an error that they’d caught prior to submission.

The paper, “Endothelial/mesenchymal stem cell crosstalk within bioprinted coculture,” appeared in Tissue Engineering Part A, a Mary Ann Liebert publication. The senior author of the article was John Fisher, who holds an endowed chair in bioengineering at Maryland and also is one of the journal’s co-editors.

According to the retraction notice:

Former grad student faked cancer research data, says federal watchdog

A former graduate student at the University of Cincinnati falsified data in a published article, since retracted, and an unpublished manuscript, according to government investigators.

The U.S. Office of Research Integrity (ORI) said Logan Fulford doctored images while working at the university on experiments supported by two federally funded grants. Fulford, who is now a senior clinical research associate at IQVIA, a health care consulting company, entered into a voluntary settlement with the agency but neither denied nor admitted to the misconduct.

The published paper, titled “The transcription factor FOXF1 promotes prostate cancer by stimulating the mitogen-activated protein kinase ERK5,” appeared in Science Signaling in 2016. Fulford was first author on the article, which the journal retracted in 2018, after initially flagging it with an expression of concern.

Another whodunit: The author no one can find

Readers, meet Beatriz Ychussie. Or don’t meet Beatriz Ychussie.

Ychussie is a co-author of three recently retracted math papers. Or maybe not.

The three articles — in the Journal of Inequalities and Applications, Advances in Difference Equations, and Fixed Point Theory and Applications, all Springer Nature titles — had an overlapping set of problems, including plagiarism and faked peer review. But they all had one particular problem when it came to Ychussie:

Materials science group loses four papers, has four more flagged

A Springer Nature journal has retracted four papers by a group of materials scientists in France, Spain and Tunisia, and slapped expressions of concern on four more.

All eight papers, from Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics, share three common authors: Abdelmajid Lassoued, Salah Ammar, and Abdellatif Gadri, of Université de Gabès in Tunisia. The retractions and expressions of concern all relate to duplicate publication of other work by papers that include various members of the team as authors.

A typical retraction notice, for “Synthesis and characterization of Ni-doped α-Fe2O3 nanoparticles through co-precipitation method with enhanced photocatalytic activities”:

Former U Maryland researcher faked data in seven papers, two Federal grants: ORI

A former veterinary scientist at the University of Maryland has been found guilty of misconduct, including fabrication of data, by the U.S. Office of Research Integrity (ORI).

According to ORI:

Covid-19 and sex? Rapid-fire acceptance leads to hasty withdrawal of paper

The Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology has taken down a letter on whether people should abstain from sex during the coronavirus pandemic, but the editor says the article is not being retracted.

Meanwhile, researchers in France have retracted a paper in which they’d claimed to have found replication of the virus that causes Covid-19 in the dialysis fluid of a patient with kidney disease. Again, hasty publication appears to be involved. We’ve been tracking retractions of Covid-19 articles on our website, and, let’s just say, the list is almost certainly a trailing indicator of the robustness of the science here — as it is with retractions during any period.

Back to the letter. “COVID-19: Should sexual practices be discouraged during the pandemic?” was written by ZhiQiang Yin, of the Department of Dermatology at the First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, in China. Yin submitted the article on April 14. The journal accepted it on the 16th and published it on April 30th.

According to the notice:

The circle of life, publish or perish edition: Two journals retract more than 40 papers

Talk about the publish-or-perish version of the circle of life.

A Springer Nature journal has retracted 33 articles — 29 from one special issue, and four from another — for a laundry list of publishing sins, from fake peer review to plagiarism to stealing unpublished manuscripts.

And an Elsevier journal has retracted ten papers recently for duplication — of ten of the Springer Nature journal’s papers.

A typical notice from the Springer Nature journal, Multimedia Tools and Applications (MTAP):

Doing the right thing: Researchers retract clinician burnout study after realizing their error

A journal is retracting and replacing a 2016 study which found that nearly two-thirds of clinicians who focus on end-of-life care experienced burnout, after the authors found an error that had dramatically inflated the findings.

The article, “Prevalence and predictors of burnout among hospice and palliative care clinicians in the U.S.,” appeared in the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, and has been cited 72 times, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science. The authors, led by Arif Kamal, of Duke University, included researchers at Mayo Clinic, the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, the University of Pittsburgh and other institutions.

But while working on a subsequent paper, the authors realized that something was amiss with their first article. The two studies revealed strikingly different rates of burnout in the surveys the researchers had conducted, 62% vs. 39%, an unusual finding given that a relatively short time had elapsed between the surveys, they said. A closer look revealed a critical error.

Publisher slaps expressions of concern on 20 papers by nutrition supplement-selling doctor

More than two years after being made aware of undisclosed conflicts of interest by a Minnesota physician who ran afoul of the U.S. FDA for health claims about supplements sold by his company, a publisher has added expressions of concern on 20 of the doctor’s papers.

As we reported in August 2019, on Feb. 23, 2018, Stephen Barrett — a U.S. physician and founder of Quackwatch — sent Dove Press a message about the 20 papers by Marty Hinz:

Study claiming broader spread of aerosolized coronavirus is retracted

A schematic based on the now-retracted findings, as published in newspapers

A study which found that aerosolized novel coronavirus could be spread nearly 15 feet — twice what health officials had believed — has been retracted, but the journal isn’t saying why.

Practical Preventive Medicine published the paper in early March. Titled “An epidemiological investigation of 2019 novel coronavirus diseases through aerosol－borne transmission by public transport,” the authors, from institutions in China, looked at the spread of the virus on a bus linked to one infected passenger.

According to the abstract:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: