The Journal of Clinical Oncology (JCO) has retracted a November 2011 editorial by a group of French cancer researchers, including David Khayat, the former head of that country’s National Cancer Institute, over what appears to be fairly extensive plagiarism.
Here’s the notice for the article, “Lymphocyte Infiltration in Breast Cancer: A Key Prognostic Factor That Should Not Be Ignored:” Continue reading JCO retracts article from major French cancer group over apparent plagiarism
Some retractions beg for a kick of sand in the face, and others do the kicking. Here’s an example of what Charles Atlas might have written had he been a journal editor concerned with research integrity.
Experimental Biology and Medicine, the official journal of the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine, has retracted a 2010 article by a group of stem cell scientists in China with an unfortunate affinity for a particular figure—one they’d used in a previous publication, only with a different description.
Here’s the notice for the paper, “Isolation and characterization of multipotent progenitor cells from the human fetal aorta wall,” which was cited five times before it was retracted, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge: Continue reading Journal retracts heart stem cell paper (and pulls no punches) over image fraud
The journal Cancer has issued an Expression of Concern about two lung cancer screening papers long dogged by doubt.
Last April, The Cancer Letter and The New York Times jointly published an investigation into the International Early Lung Cancer Action Program (I-ELCAP) run by Claudia Henschke and David Yankelevitz. Other researchers had already criticized the design and conclusions of that trial, but as the investigation noted, an October 2008 review of the study found that the researchers couldn’t find 90 percent of the subjects’ consent forms, an ethical no-no that jeopardizes as many as 135 papers.
Two papers published in Cancer, in 2000 and 2001, are among those studies, according to the notice (links added), which credits the Times and The Cancer Letter and notes that the journal has referred the case to Federal investigators: Continue reading Cancer issues expression of concern about two Henschke I-ELCAP lung cancer screening papers
The authors of a study in Urology that was at the center of two 2009 lawsuits brought by a company that funded the work have retracted the paper.
The idea behind the research — by Robert Getzenberg and colleagues at Johns Hopkins — was to find an alternative to the prostate specific antigen (PSA) test, which many urologists recommend, but which many groups — including the US Preventive Services Task Force — find wanting. The work gave rise to a company, Onconome, Science reported in a 2009 story about the lawsuits: Continue reading Hopkins scientists retract prostate cancer screening study at center of 2009 lawsuits
If Retraction Watch was actually a business, as opposed — for the moment, anyway — to a labor of love for two guys with day jobs, 2011 would have been a very good year for business.
It was a year that will probably see close to 400 retractions, including a number of high-profile ones, once the dust settles. Those high numbers caught the attention of a lot of major media outlets, from Nature to NPR to the Wall Street Journal. Science publications, including LiveScience and The Scientist, have done their own end-of-year retraction lists.
It was also a good year for us at Retraction Watch. Many news outlets featured us in their coverage, either picking up stories we’d broken or asking us for comment on big-picture issues. Three national NPR programs — Science Friday, On the Media, and All Things Considered — had us on air. We launched a column in LabTimes, and Nature asked us to write a year-end commentary. We even earned a Wikipedia entry. Continue reading The Year of the Retraction: A look back at 2011
More than 14 months after Blood issued a notice of concern about a paper by a Harvard stem cell scientist and her former post-doc, the journal has retracted the article.
Here’s the notice for the paper, “Osteolineage niche cells initiate hematopoietic stem cell mobilization,” by Shane Mayack and Amy Wagers: Continue reading Blood retracts stem cell paper from Amy Wagers’ Harvard lab after 14 months of concern
If there’s one consistent lesson of covering retractions, it’s that science doesn’t stop when researchers publish a paper. But what also seems true is that once a paper is published, lots of people — authors and editors, in particular — are often reluctant to say just what’s happened next, particularly if it casts the study or the journal in a negative light.
Some of this is understandable, given the weight given papers by tenure committees and granting agencies. Still, Retraction Watch readers will not be surprised to know we’d like that to change, so when Nature asked us to contribute an end-of-the-year commentary, we decided to focus on post-publication peer review. In our piece, which appears this week, titled “The paper is not sacred,” we argue: Continue reading Stop fetishizing the scientific paper: Our invited Comment in Nature
Another paper in Diabetologia by Yoshiyuki Hattori has been retracted for image duplication, marking the second of his articles in the journal to be pulled for that reason.
The notice for the article, “A glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) analogue, liraglutide, upregulates nitric oxide production and exerts anti-inflammatory action in endothelial cells,” states: Continue reading Another Hattori retraction over reused figure from cardiology pub
The senior author of a Journal of Immunology paper has retracted it after a university investigation found that he had inappropriately manipulated images, Retraction Watch has learned.
Here’s the notice: Continue reading Cardiff University misconduct investigation leads to Journal of Immunology retraction
Research in Veterinary Science has retracted a 2010 paper by Egyptian scientists who published the same article the previous year in a different journal.
Here’s the retraction notice for the paper, “Comparative biochemical studies on steroidogenic compounds in chickens,” by Mohamed O.T. Badr and Mohamed A. Hashem, from Zagazig University and the Egyptian Ministry of Agriculture: Continue reading Which came first? Vet journal retracts previously published chicken paper