Category: by subject

Too much skin in the game, as duplications force retraction of psoriasis paper

actadermA group of dermatology researchers from Egypt who passed around a psoriasis paper like a bottle of sunscreen at the beach have been burned (sorry) by a journal that caught them in the act.

Acta Dermatovenerologica Alpina, Pannonica et Adriatica is retracting the 2009 article “Association of cytokine gene polymorphisms with psoriasis in cases from the Nile Delta of Egypt” after discovering that they were far from the first publication to print the paper.

Here’s the retraction notice (it’s a pdf): Continue reading Too much skin in the game, as duplications force retraction of psoriasis paper

When two words colloid: “copied and manipulated” figures prompt retraction of nanoparticle paper

colloids and surfaces bThe journal Colloids and Surfaces B: Biointerfaces has retracted a 2011 paper by a group of researchers in India who misappropriated — and then manhandled — a pair of images from a previously published article by other scientists.

The paper, “Synthesis and characterization of chitosan and grape polyphenols stabilized palladium nanoparticles and their antibacterial activity,” was written by authors from various institutions in Tamil Nadu, and appeared online in December 2011 and in print the following April. It has been cited three times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

Here’s the abstract: Continue reading When two words colloid: “copied and manipulated” figures prompt retraction of nanoparticle paper

Math paper retracted because it “contains some ethical problems”

inequalThe Journal of of Inequalities and Applications has retracted a paper for unspecified “ethical problems.”

Here’s the notice for “Strong Limiting Behavior in Binary Search Trees:” Continue reading Math paper retracted because it “contains some ethical problems”

Chemistry papers retracted for “lack of objectivity:” The authors did their own peer review

synthreactSynthesis and Reactivity in Inorganic, Metal-Organic, and Nano-Metal Chemistry is retracting three articles for duplication — redundancy the authors, chemical engineers at Islamic Azad University, in Shahreza, Iran, appear to have gotten around by reviewing their own manuscripts. But, if they did say so themselves, those papers were really something!

Here’s the retraction notice for two of the papers, both of which appeared in 2012 and which were cited seven times and once, respectively, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge:
Continue reading Chemistry papers retracted for “lack of objectivity:” The authors did their own peer review

Frontiers papers on GMO debate, diabetes retracted for improperly cited text

frontiers plantThe author of a review article on diabetes has been forced to retract the paper after it emerged that he failed to properly credit some of the text — an omission we generally associate with the word plagiarism.

The article, “Colonic flora, probiotics, obesity and diabetes,” was written by Paul Marik, of Eastern Virginia Medical School, and appeared in July 2012 in Frontiers in Endocrinology. It has been cited once, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

Here’s the retraction notice:

Continue reading Frontiers papers on GMO debate, diabetes retracted for improperly cited text

Journal retracts two papers after being caught manipulating citations

pibbEarlier this week, in a story by Richard van Noorden, Nature revealed the hidden workings of a scheme referred to as “citation stacking” that has landed a number of journals in trouble. The story begins:

Mauricio Rocha-e-Silva thought that he had spotted an easy way to raise the profiles of Brazilian journals. From 2009, he and several other editors published articles containing hundreds of references to papers in each others’ journals — in order, he says, to elevate the journals’ impact factors.

As Nature reports, Rocha-e-Silva was apparently frustrated that Brazilian government agencies were relying heavily on impact factor to evaluate graduate programs. That meant few scientists were willing to publish in Brazilian journals, which had lower impact factors. Rocha-e-Silva describes some of these frustrations in an impassioned 2009 editorial (in Portuguese). Continue reading Journal retracts two papers after being caught manipulating citations

Doing the right thing: Researchers retract two studies when they realize they misinterpreted data

protein scienceWhat do you do when new experiments show that you interpreted the data from your old experiments the wrong way?

Some scientists might just shrug and sweep those errors — and their previous papers — under the rug. But when it happened to Jeffery Kelly, of the Scripps Research Institute, and his colleagues, they decided to retract their earlier work.

Here’s the abstract of their new paper (we bolded a few sentences for emphasis): Continue reading Doing the right thing: Researchers retract two studies when they realize they misinterpreted data

Sir, that’s not my colon: Journal has a bite of a chicken and egg problem

Case report: An 85-year-old man eats some chicken and unknowingly swallows a bone. After two days of worsening abdominal pain, he shows up to the emergency room. A CT scan reveals the bone perforating his colon. He is rushed to surgery, which is successful. Then, during his otherwise uneventful recovery, he develops female breasts.

That’s not exactly the case report that showed up in the International Journal of Surgical Case Reports earlier this month, but then again, the images in the relevant case report aren’t exactly of someone’s colon, either.

With a warning that the clinical images below are mildly NSFW, here’s Figure 1 from the cleverly titled “Chicken or the leg: Sigmoid colon perforation by ingested poultry fibula proximal to an occult malignancy:” Continue reading Sir, that’s not my colon: Journal has a bite of a chicken and egg problem

One more paper down for sex researcher Weijmar Schultz

Weijmar Schultz
Weijmar Schultz

The fifth of six expected retractions for copyright infringement has arrived for a group of sex researchers led by Willibrord Weijmar Schultz, this one in the International Journal of Gynecological Cancer of a 1992 article.

As we reported earlier this year, Schultz (whose 1999 paper on sex in an MRI won an Ig Nobel prize) and his colleague,  Mels F. Van Driel, were found not to have committed plagiarism by investigators at the University of Groningen. Instead, they were found guilty of “unintended and unknowing breach of copyright.”

But they were asked to apologize formally to a litany of people — from the editors involved to the sponsors of the research — for what the institution described as “unintended and unknowing breach of copyright” of the work of one Diana Jeffrey, whose 1985 dissertation evidently was very much worth reading.

Here’s the latest retraction notice: Continue reading One more paper down for sex researcher Weijmar Schultz

Are US behavioral science researchers more likely to exaggerate their results?

Daniele Fanelli
Daniele Fanelli

When Retraction Watch readers think of problematic psychology research, their minds might naturally turn to Diederik Stapel, who now has 54 retractions under his belt. Dirk Smeesters might also tickle the neurons.

But a look at our psychology category shows that psychology retractions are an international phenomenon. (Remember Marc Hauser?) And a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) suggests that it’s behavioral science researchers in the U.S. who are more likely to exaggerate or cherry-pick their findings.

For the new paper, Daniele Fanelli — whose 2009 paper in PLoS ONE contains some of the best data on the prevalence of misconduct — teamed up with John Ioannidis, well known for his work on “why most published research findings are false.” They looked at Continue reading Are US behavioral science researchers more likely to exaggerate their results?