A Japanese anesthesiologist who just notched his sixth retraction apologized for his misconduct and said his institution is now investigating his entire body of work.
Hironobu Ueshima, of Showa University in Tokyo, who has roughly 170 publications, told Retraction Watch by email:
Continue reading “I want to apologize for my misconduct,” says anesthesiologist whose work is under investigation
Earlier this month, we reported on the retraction of two papers by a Japanese anesthesiologist for unreliable data. At the time, we noted that the case of Hironobu Ueshima bore watching, given his publication total runs to about 170.
[See an update on this story.]
The two retractions earlier this month came after an earlier one from the journal Medicine in April. Now, another anesthesia journal has retracted three more papers by Ueshima, citing misconduct, for a total of six.
The articles appeared in Regional Anesthesia & Pain Medicine in 2016 and 2019. According to the notice:
Continue reading And then there were six: three more retractions for Japanese anesthesiologist
A journal has retracted two case reports by a prolific Japanese anesthesiologist who appears to be embroiled in a misconduct investigation.
The two case studies, in JA Clinical Reports, were written by Hironobu Ueshima and Hiroshi Otake, of Showa University Hospital in Tokyo. Ueshima has roughly 170 publications to his name, according to Google Scholar, so we’ll be closely watching for developments in this case.
The two retracted articles in JA Clinical Reports, a Springer title affiliated with the Japanese Society of Anesthesiologists, appeared in 2016 and 2018. The first, “Successful clavicle fracture surgery performed under selective supraclavicular nerve block using the new subclavian approach,” now carries the following notice:
Continue reading Prolific anesthesiologist in Japan has two papers retracted
Score one for responsiveness.
In mid-May, we reported on the retraction of three review articles by Joachim Boldt, whose papers continue to fall despite his having been exposed as a fraudster a decade ago. At the time, we wondered why another journal, Anesthesia & Analgesia, hadn’t also pulled reviews by Boldt that it had published over the years.
Now, it has.
Continue reading Slow but steady: Anesthesiology researcher with more than 100 retractions will earn two more
A group of anesthesiology researchers in India has had 10 papers retracted from a single journal because of a “high rate of similarity from various other articles along with overwhelming evidence of data fabrication.”
The retractions came after one of the authors of the papers submitted a manuscript to a different journal whose editor sniffed out issues and raised a red flag.
The Saudi Journal of Anesthesia has retracted ten articles by Anjan Das, of Kolkata, and colleagues:
Continue reading Anesthesiology group loses ten papers at once in one journal
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
Tokyo Women’s Medical University has stripped a researcher of her PhD, following the retraction of a paper — for data duplication — that was based on her thesis.
The August 30th announcement notes that a degree was revoked on July 20. The announcement does not name the researcher, but refers to degree number 2881, which corresponds to Rika Nakayama’s PhD. The university describes carelessness and errors, but not misconduct.
Here’s a rough Google translation of the announcement: Continue reading Japanese university revokes PhD following a retraction
Journals have retracted all but 19 of the 313 tainted papers linked to three of the most notorious fraudsters in science, with only stragglers left in the literature. But editors and publishers have been less diligent when it comes to delivering optimal retraction notices for the affected articles.
That’s the verdict of a new analysis in the journal Anaesthesia, which found that 15% of retraction notices for the affected papers fail fully to meet standards from the Committee for Publication Ethics (COPE). Many lacked appropriate language and requisite watermarks stating that the articles had been removed, and some have vanished from the literature.
The article was written by U. M. McHugh, of University Hospital in Galway, Ireland, and Steven Yentis, a consultant anaesthetist at Chelsea & Westminster Hospital in London. Yentis was editor of Anaesthesia during the three scandals and had a first-hand view of two of the investigations. He also is the editor who unleashed anesthetist and self-trained statistician John Carlisle on the Fujii papers to see how likely the Japanese researcher’s data were to be valid (answer: not very likely). Continue reading When it comes to retracting papers by the world’s most prolific scientific fraudsters, journals have room for improvement
An editor thought she did a great job running an anesthesiology journal. But her colleagues— including the new editor who took over for her—heartily disagree.
During her tenure at the journal, the outgoing editor penned an editorial taking credit for the journal’s rise to success. But, according to a new commentary published in the journal, the former editor’s article presented wrong statistics, and minimized the contributions of those who had come before her. So when the new editor took office, he retracted it—and published the lengthy commentary explaining why. Continue reading Infighting at journal prompts retraction of editorial “full of misinformation”
Last year, an emergency medicine journal retracted a letter to the editor because it didn’t include the author’s potential conflict of interest. Now, it’s had a change of heart.
Earlier this month, the Canadian Journal of Emergency Medicine withdrew the retraction after determining the author, Guy Weinberg, had, in fact, provided information about his potential conflict with his initial submission. Continue reading A retraction gets retracted
