Category: by reason for retraction

Former University of Kansas researcher who plagiarized Harvard prof banned from Federal funding for two years

Rakesh Srivastava

A researcher fired from the University of Kansas Medical Center (KUMC) in 2014 for plagiarizing the work of a Harvard scientist has been barred from receiving Federal U.S. funding for two years.

The sanctions come three years after the U.S. Office of Research Integrity (ORI) tried to impose a three-year ban on funding for Rakesh Srivastava, who appealed the move. In September of this year, Department of Health and Human Services  administrative law judge Keith Sickendick recommended a two-year sanction.

In his decision, Sickendick noted that there was no evidence that Srivastava had engaged in research misconduct other than in this incident, and that he denied adding the plagiarized passages to the grant application himself. (Srivastava, who had also worked at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, is last author on a 2002 retraction from the Journal of Biological Chemistry for plagiarism, but it is unclear who was responsible.)

ORI tells Retraction Watch that it is “pleased that the ALJ upheld its findings.

An ‘Eminent Scholar’

Srivastava — along with his wife, Sharmila Shankar — joined KUMC in 2009 to great fanfare: Continue reading Former University of Kansas researcher who plagiarized Harvard prof banned from Federal funding for two years

Data mishap forces retraction of paper on gun laws, domestic killings

The authors of a 2018 paper on the effects of gun laws on domestic violence have retracted the article after discovering errors in their analysis and replaced it with a clean version. The new study shows that some gun laws — particularly ones that keep firearms out of the hands of violent offenders, even if their offenses don’t involve domestic assaults — do seem to reduce the incidence of domestic killings.

The paper, which appeared last November in the American Journal of Epidemiology and received some press coverage, including this piece in the New York Times, looked specifically at whether laws that keep guns away from people convicted of violent crimes beyond domestic abuse reduce the number of intimate partner homicides. It also considered the effect of laws that covered dating partners and not simply spouses or former spouses. The first author is April Zeoli, of Michigan State University. Zeoli has published other papers on the topic and delivered a TEDMED talk on it as well.

According to the abstract of the article: Continue reading Data mishap forces retraction of paper on gun laws, domestic killings

Caveat scriptor: How a journal editor unraveled the mystery of the overlapping bad data

John Loadsman

Caveat scriptor—writer beware.

That’s the moral of a recent editorial in the Saudi Journal of Anesthesia, prompted by the retraction in that journal of a 2014 paper with bum data.

The editorial was written by John Loadsman, an anesthesiologist in Sydney, Australia, and editor of the journal Anaesthesia and Intensive Care, who played a role in the retraction. Here’s how.

According to Loadsman, he was considering an article for his journal — a meta-analysis of previously published findings. On inspection, he he noticed that some of the studies cited in the meta-analysis were potentially problematic, including Continue reading Caveat scriptor: How a journal editor unraveled the mystery of the overlapping bad data

When is asparagus not asparagus? Why, when it’s ginger, of course!

Asparagus and ginger (and other ingredients) living happily together (via Beck/Flickr)

Allow us to explain that headline.

Food Science & Nutrition has retracted a 2018 article by a group of researchers in China and Pakistan for plagiarism. The article was titled “Experimentally investigated the asparagus (Asparagus officinalis L.) drying with flat-plate collector under the natural convection indirect solar dryer.”  

Per the retraction notice: Continue reading When is asparagus not asparagus? Why, when it’s ginger, of course!

As China cracks down on faked drug trial data, US FDA abandons disclosure rule

The FDA has walked away from a 2010 rule that would have forced drug makers to disclose fabricated data to regulators.

As Bloomberg Law reported last week, the FDA has withdrawn the proposed rule, “Reporting Information Regarding Falsification of Data,” which would Continue reading As China cracks down on faked drug trial data, US FDA abandons disclosure rule

How a typo in a catalog number led to the correction of a scientific paper — and what we can learn from that

Anita Bandrowski

Papers are corrected for lots of different reasons. In this guest post, Anita Bandrowski, who leads an initiative designed to help researchers identify their reagents correctly, describes one unusual reason for a correction — and explains what researchers can learn from the episode.

Last December, Tianyi Wang and her colleagues published a very interesting paper in Cell Metabolism on the potential link between a gene called JAK/STAT3 and breast cancer. It turns out that breast cancers become resistant to chemotherapy via a pathway that involves JAK/STAT3, and blocking this pathway can re-sensitize the tumor to chemotherapy.

But six months later, they corrected the paper — because of typos in the catalog numbers they’d used. Continue reading How a typo in a catalog number led to the correction of a scientific paper — and what we can learn from that

In wake of media scrutiny, Sloan Kettering author adds financial disclosures

Michelle Bradbury, via MSKCC

A month after a journalism investigation that led to resignations and turmoil at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, researchers including a Sloan Kettering scientist have quietly corrected at least two papers to add disclosures of financial conflicts of interest.

The two corrections, in Chemistry of Materials, are dated October 8, 2018 and read: Continue reading In wake of media scrutiny, Sloan Kettering author adds financial disclosures

University of Kentucky cancer toxicologist retracts three papers for image duplication

Xianglin Shi

A researcher at the University of Kentucky who studies the cancer risks of toxic chemicals has retracted three papers.

All of the retraction notices, which appear in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, refer to some kind of image duplication. The papers were originally published between 2014 and 2017, with the 2014 paper cited 39 times, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science.

Continue reading University of Kentucky cancer toxicologist retracts three papers for image duplication

Canadian Medical Association leaves international group after president plagiarizes past president’s speech

The address was supposed to be a triumphant inaugural speech.

On Friday, Leonid Eidelman, the incoming president of the World Medical Association (WMA), made up of representatives from national medical associations, stood up in front of the group’s members in Reykjavik, Iceland, and told them it was a great honor to become their leader.

The trouble was, his speech had lifted passages from various sources — including remarks one of his predecessors had given in 2014. The following morning, members of the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) — including Chris Simpson, who had delivered the original 2014 speech — made a motion for Eidelman to resign. When that failed, the CMA said it was leaving the WMA.

CMA president Gigi Osler said in a statement: Continue reading Canadian Medical Association leaves international group after president plagiarizes past president’s speech

Former director of U.S. research watchdog agency moves to NIH

Kathy Partin

Kathy Partin, who served as director of the U.S. Office of Research Integrity (ORI) for just under two years until being removed from the post late in 2017, has a new position at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), Retraction Watch has learned.

As of yesterday (Sept. 30), Partin is intramural research integrity officer at the NIH. She replaces Melissa Colbert, who will be retiring. Continue reading Former director of U.S. research watchdog agency moves to NIH