A paper accidentally credited the wrong researcher with providing part of an experiment.
It turns out that one of the authors supplied an expression vector to a Circulation paper about the molecular underpinnings of atherosclerosis — not the outside researcher originally thanked in the acknowledgements section.
The correction notice to the paper makes the situation sound more mysterious than it appears to be:
Continue reading Vector wasn’t a gift after all, correction notes
An investigation at Taipei Medical University found that an author made “serious mistakes” when preparing a manuscript.
The journal prompted the university to investigate the paper, which looks at the role of a protein in repairing arteries after an injury.
The retraction notice explains:
Continue reading Author “committed serious mistakes,” finds Taipei investigation
The editors of a journal that recently retracted a paper after the peer-review process was “compromised” have published the fake reviews, along with additional details about the case.
In the editorial titled “Organised crime against the academic peer review system,” Adam Cohen and other editors at the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology say they missed “several fairly obvious clues that should have set alarm bells ringing.” For instance, the glowing reviews from supposed high-profile researchers at Ivy League institutions were returned within a few days, were riddled with grammar problems, and the authors had no previous publications.
The case is one of many we’ve recently seen in which papers are pulled due to actions of a third party.
The paper was submitted on August 5, 2015. From the beginning, the timing was suspect, Cohen — the director for the Centre for Human Drug Research in The Netherlands — and his colleagues note: Continue reading Editors say they missed “fairly obvious clues” of third party tampering, publish fake peer reviews
A researcher accused of misconduct by an anonymous Japanese blogger has corrected a 2003 paper in Circulation Research, after providing a university investigation with the original source files.
Allegations of fraud have dogged Shokei Kim-Mitsuyama for years, and even caused him to step down from his position as editor in chief at another journal. However, Kim-Mitsuyama and his colleagues call the latest correction a “mistake,” which didn’t affect any of the paper’s conclusions.
We’ve unearthed a total of five publications co-authored by Kim-Mitsuyama that have earned corrections, the latest of which cites an investigation by the university:
Continue reading Raw files help fix 2003 figure by heart researcher accused of fraud
Journals have retracted two papers after realizing that they contain “nearly identical” abstracts and introductions, published only months apart.
The two retracted papers, along with a third that also contains similar text, all conclude that a certain polymorphism could signal a risk for coronary artery disease among Chinese people, though each paper presents different data. The papers do not have any authors in common; the first authors are all based at different hospitals in China. The editor in chief of one journal told us that some of the reviewers did not use institutional email addresses, which leaves open the possibility that they were fake emails, and the peer-review process was compromised.
Here’s the first retraction notice, for “Fibroblast growth factor receptor 4 polymorphisms and susceptibility to coronary artery disease,” published in DNA and Cell Biology. The notice states the paper contains:
Continue reading Journals retract two heart papers with “nearly identical” abstracts
The British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology (BJCP) has retracted a 2015 paper about treating heart failure after deciding its peer review process had been compromised.
This paper is one of the many we’ve noticed lately that have been felled by the actions of a “third party” — in this case, a manuscript editing company called EditPub.
The newly retracted paper, “rhBNP therapy can improve clinical outcomes and reduce in-hospital mortality compared with dobutamine in heart failure patients: a meta-analysis,” has not yet been cited, according to Thomson Reuters Web of Science.
Here’s the retraction note, which tells us a bit more: Continue reading Pharmacology journal pulls paper because third party “compromised” peer review
Elsevier has now retracted the seven papers it flagged in October as being affected by fake peer reviews.
If you’re not keeping track, we are: We have logged a total of about 300 retractions for fake peer review, in which some aspect of the peer-review process becomes compromised — for instance, in the case of the newly retracted papers, authors appear to have created fake email accounts in order to pose as reviewers and give the green light to their own papers.
The same retraction note applies to five of the recently retracted papers:
Continue reading Seven papers flagged earlier for fake reviews now retracted by Elsevier
Thrombosis Research has removed an abstract after all seven authors authors listed did not know that it had been submitted for publication.
We’ve seen many instances of some authors not being in on a submission, but a case in which all of the authors are in the dark? That’s new to us.
A spokesperson for Elsevier, the journal’s publisher, told us that the organizers of a conference submitted it to the journal as part of a supplement for a meeting, unbeknownst to the authors.
Here’s the odd “removal notice” for “The Characterisation of the Age-Specific Differences in Platelet Physiology and Function:”
Continue reading How does an abstract get published without any of the authors knowing?
The University of Gothenburg in Sweden is investigating several papers co-authored by biologist Suchitra Sumitran-Holgersson after they were challenged on PubPeer.
Sumitran-Holgersson already has one retraction under her belt — of a 2005 Blood paper, after another investigation concluded the results “cannot be considered reliable.” Sumitran-Holgersson and her husband, co-author Jan Holgersson, did not sign the retraction notice. Both were based at the Karolinska Institutet (KI) at the time, but have since moved to the University of Gothenburg.
Now, the University of Gothenburg has launched its own investigation of the papers questioned on PubPeer, according to Continue reading Biologist’s research under investigation in Sweden after being questioned on PubPeer
A doctor in Manchester, UK has received a year’s suspension by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service.
Gemina Doolub admitted that she fabricated research data and submitted papers without the knowledge of her co-authors, including faking an email address for a co-author, a news story in the BMJ reports. The research in question was part of two retractions that Doolub received in 2013, one of which we covered at the time.
Doolub’s research examined ways to treat and avoid microvascular obstruction — that is, blocked arteries. Doolub did the work while at Oxford.
“Intracoronary Adenosine versus Intravenous Adenosine during Primary PCI for ST-Elevation Myocardial Infarction: Which One Offers Better Outcomes in terms of Microvascular Obstruction?” was published in International Scholarly Research Notices Cardiology and has not yet been cited, according to Thomson Reuters Web of Science.
As the BMJ reports, in that paper,
Continue reading Doctor suspended in UK after faking co-authors, data