by subject – Page 35 – Retraction Watch

Prolific anesthesiologist in Japan has two papers retracted

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:

Controversial essay at German chemistry journal leads to suspensions, mass resignations

Facing a storm of criticism on social media, a chemistry journal in Germany has suspended two editors who handled a controversial essay that it said “highlights the bias displayed in our field and many others” to women and minority researchers.

And the 16 members of the journal’s international advisory board — which includes Nobel Laureates — resigned while denouncing the essay.

The article, “Organic synthesis-where now?’ Is thirty years old. A reflection on the current state of affairs,” by Tomas Hudlicky, of Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario, had appeared in Angewandte Chemie, the flagship publication of the German Chemical Society. Hudlicky’s argument included several statements that suggested a hostility to efforts on university campuses to promote diversity.

The journal initially removed the essay without a notice, which isn’t best practice for retractions. It has since issued this statement from Neville Compton, the editor-in-chief:

A nursing journal makes two online critiques disappear

A series of back and forth publications about a 12-year-old study of nursing education ended with some unusual editorial decisions.

Darrell Spurlock, a professor of nursing at Widener University and director of the university’s Leadership Center for Nursing Education Research, co-authored a study of the Health Education Systems, Inc. (HESI) nursing test in 2008. He and his colleague found that the test was a poor predictor of failure on the National Counsel Licensure Exam (NCLEX-RN).

More than a decade later, a critique of the paper, by Dreher et al., appeared out of the blue, published last year in Nursing Forum, a Wiley journal. Spurlock takes issue with the way his research was portrayed in the critique, which paints a more positive picture of the HESI test.

Group withdraws COVID-19 scoring tool based on Surgisphere data following NEJM, Lancet retractions

On the heels of retractions of papers based on data that has fallen under intense scrutiny, an emergency medicine group in Africa is withdrawing a tool that they built using data from the same company.

Lee Wallis, one of the editors in chief of the African Journal of Emergency Medicine, described the tool, built in a partnership with the African Federation for Emergency Medicine (AFEM) and Surgisphere, in an April 2, 2020 editorial. A PubPeer commenter noted the potential issues today (June 6), and Wallis responded there nearly immediately to say that the tool was withdrawn.

In a statement, AFEM writes:

Following outrage, chemistry journal makes a paper decrying diversity efforts disappear

The New York Times isn’t the only outlet that has walked back a commentary this week amid reader outrage.

Following a flood of criticism on social media, a chemistry journal in Germany has disappeared an essay by Canadian researcher who argued that efforts to promote diversity in the field were hurting science. [See an update on this post.]

Lancet, NEJM retract controversial COVID-19 studies based on Surgisphere data

Two days after issuing expressions of concern about controversial papers on Covid-19, The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine have retracted the articles because a number of the authors were not granted access to the underlying data.

The Lancet paper, “Hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine with or without a macrolide for treatment of COVID-19: a multinational registry analysis,” which relied on data from a private company called Surgisphere and had concluded that hydroxychloroquine was linked to a higher risk of death among some COVID-19 patients, has been dogged by questions since its publication in late May. Some of those complaints led to a correction about aspects of the data, but at the time the authors stood by their conclusions — namely, that hydrochloroquine and chloroquine do not to appear to be effective against the viral infection.

That correction was followed earlier this week by the expression of concern, and now three of the four authors of the article have decided to pull it entirely. The abstaining author, Sapan Desai, is the founder of Surgisphere, whose mission statement declares that the goal of the company is to:

Slow but steady: Anesthesiology researcher with more than 100 retractions will earn two more

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.

Race to be first to report first case of COVID-19 death during pregnancy leads to a retraction

A group of researchers in Iran has retracted their case report on what they claimed was the first known case of a pregnant woman who died of Covid-19.

The reason: According to the corresponding author, another group of researchers in Iran, who had first seen the patient at their hospital, had beaten them to the submission punch without their knowledge. (This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a case like this.)

The paper appeared in Travel Medicine and Infectious Disease, an Elsevier title, on April 11. Sometime in early May, it seems (the dates are unclear on the journal website) the group, led by a team at Zanjan University of Medical Sciences, retracted the article.

Elsevier allows authors to withdraw papers without explanation if they have appeared online but not yet in print, which is the case here. So the retraction notice says, well, nothing:

Anesthesiology group loses ten papers at once in one journal

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:

A convicted felon wants people to enroll in a COVID-19 clinical trial. What could go wrong?

Richard Fleming, a felon convicted of health care fraud who has been debarred by the US Food and Drug Administration, would like to invite you to participate in a clinical trial.

Fleming has registered a study on ClinicalTrials.gov to evaluate what he calls the “Fleming Method for Tissue and Vascular Differentiation and Metabolism” — a method he claims can help physicians assess pneumonia resulting from Covid-19.

According to the notes for the study:

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