PLoS One has retracted a 2013 article on atherosclerosis in mice over concerns about the integrity of the data.
The paper, “The Effect of Soluble RAGE on Inhibition of Angiotensin II-Mediated Atherosclerosis in Apolipoprotein E Deficient Mice,” came from a group of researchers in South Korea.
It purported to show that: Continue reading Data questions prompt retraction of PLOS ONE cardiovascular paper
The European Heart Journal has issued an expression of concern for a 2014 2001 paper by Don Poldermans, the Dutch heart researcher who stepped down from his post at Erasmus University after being accused of misconduct.
The article, “Bisoprolol reduces cardiac death and myocardial infarction in high-risk patients as long as 2 years after successful major vascular surgery,” appeared in July and reported data from the DECREASE trial. Poldermans, who left Erasmus in 2011, has acknowledged failing to receive informed consent from some patients in one phase of the DECREASE study but denied having fabricated results.
According to the notice: Continue reading “Wide differences in the memories” prompt expression of concern for Poldermans paper
A chemical engineering paper published in February has been retracted for data and authorship problems.
According to the retraction notice, the authors’ institutions investigated and found that not only was the data not reproducible, but “not all co-authors on the manuscript were aware of or agreed to the content and scientific conclusions in the article.”
Here’s the notice in the Journal of Chemical & Engineering Data for “Ionic Liquids as Promising Solvents for Biomass Derived Mannitol and Xylitol”: Continue reading Solvent paper dissolves under heat of institutional investigation
Karel Bezouška, a researcher who broke into a lab refrigerator to tamper with an investigation into his work, has nine retractions.
Here’s the retraction notice in Biochemistry for 2010’s “Cooperation between Subunits Is Essential for High-Affinity Binding of N-Acetyl-d-hexosamines to Dimeric Soluble and Dimeric Cellular Forms of Human CD69:” Continue reading Researcher who broke into lab up to nine retractions
A group of researchers from Egypt has lost their 2013 article on hepatitis C in the Journal of Immunoassay and Immunochemistry for fudging their figures.
The article was titled “In vitro neutralization of HCV by goat antibodies against peptides encompassing regions downstream of HVR-1 of E2 glycoprotein.” According to the abstract: Continue reading Image manipulation forces retraction of hepatitis C paper
As we’ve pointed out before, economics and business journals have few retractions compared with the other academic literature. Opinions vary on why this is, but the fact that only a few journals have plagiarism policies can’t help.
Research Papers in Economics, or RePEc, an organization that maintains a database of economics papers, however, thoroughly investigates accusations of misconduct. A RePEc report, which indicated that the plagiarists were polite enough to cite the original paper, was used in the notice as evidence for a retraction in Economic Modelling.
Here’s the notice for “Retraction notice to “Analysis of nonlinear duopoly game with heterogeneous players”: Continue reading Economics paper retracted for plagiarism after citing its twin
The Office of Research Integrity (ORI) has ruled in a case we’ve been following for nearly two years — and which seems to have been launched after Retraction Watch readers took a careful look at figures from what appeared to be an unrelated case.
Takao Takahashi and Makato Suzuki, both former postdocs at a cancer research center at UT-Southwestern, both “knowingly, intentionally, and recklessly falsified data” in a total of 10 papers, according to the ORI. Takahashi, now at Gifu University in Japan, was responsible for fakery in four papers, while Suzuki, now at Kumamoto University Hospital, also in Japan, falsified data in six.
We reported on the retraction of the four Takahashi papers, and one of the Suzuki papers, in November 2012. At that time, Adi Gazdar, the head of the lab where the researchers worked, told us that
Continue reading Former UT-Southwestern cancer researchers faked data in 10 papers: ORI
We brought you this story last week, about a paper on drug resistant staph being retracted for a lab error. Now, we’ve got an update from Rachel Safer, senior editor for medical journals at Oxford University Press, where the paper was published.
Apparently, the researchers “inadvertently relied upon the use of a test system that was not approved for the microorganism studied in their paper,” leading to the retraction, and the corresponding author of the study wasn’t initially all that responsive:
Continue reading Publisher updates with more info on staph retraction
When retraction notices and expressions of concern appear, particularly those that are opaque, we try our best to find out what’s behind them, whether it’s better explanations or the steps that led to moves. Today, we have one story in which we’ve been able to learn a lot more than usual.
In April, Bas van Steensel, Wendy Bickmore, Thomas Cremer, and Kerstin Bystricky sent a letter to about 80 leading labs in nuclear organization and steroid receptor biology. It began (we’ve added some relevant links): Continue reading A PNAS expression of concern appears — and so does its revealing backstory
Science has published the retraction of a 2006 paper about an asteroid, following a report in its news pages that the study’s authors had requested the move.
Here’s the paywalled — tsk, tsk — notice: Continue reading Hayabusa Science retraction made official, but behind a paywall