Category: china retractions

A ewe-turn: Researchers lose sleep, and paper, over miscounted sheep

Suspicious sheep via John Haslam
Suspicious sheep via John Haslam

A group of Chinese cardiologists at Capital Medical University have done a quick ewe-turn, pulling a paper after mixing up both the author order and wrongly reporting how many sheep were killed in the making of this experiment.

We covered another retraction from the CMU cardiology department in September. The sheep paper was published in October.

Here’s the notice for “Mosaic tissue-engineered porcine pulmonary artery valved conduit: long-term follow-up after implantation in an ovine model”: Continue reading A ewe-turn: Researchers lose sleep, and paper, over miscounted sheep

Fake peer review fells two more papers

medicineThe number of papers retracted for fake peer reviews — well in excess of 100, by our count — continues to grow.

The latest to join the list are “Rebamipide plus proton pump inhibitor versus proton pump inhibitor alone in treatment of endoscopic submucosal dissection-induced gastric ulcer: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials” and “Association study of TGFBR2 and miR-518 gene polymorphisms with age at natural menopause, premature ovarian failure and early menopause among Chinese Han women,” both published in 2014 in Medicine.

Here’s how both notices, signed by senior publisher Duncan A. MacRae, read: Continue reading Fake peer review fells two more papers

“Incorrect data” kills apoptosis paper

Screen Shot 2014-12-19 at 5.52.16 PMFrontiers in Pharmacology has retracted a paper on baicalin, an antioxidant sold in health food stores, because it had both “incorrect data and invalid statistical analyses.”

A comment on PubPeer notes that one of the figures (see image to the right) contains two similar-looking flow cytometry images labeled with different values, which could be what the retraction is hinting at.

Here’s the notice for “Baicalin induced dendritic cell apoptosis in vitro”: Continue reading “Incorrect data” kills apoptosis paper

Dentistry student loses travel grant for duplicating his own work

iadrThe International Association for Dental Research has retracted a student travel award after discovering that the recipient had previously published the work he used to secure the grant, including in an abstract he presented at the same conference last year.

The self-plagiarism was uncovered by an anonymous group of students at the Hong Kong University dentistry school, where the student is a PhD student. The unnamed students sent both the IADR and HKU faculty members a color-coded chart showing identical phrases between the 2014 abstract, a 2013 paper published in the Journal of Periodontal Research called “Human umbilical vein endothelial cells synergize osteo/odontogenic differentiation of periodontal ligament stem cells in 3D cell sheets,” and another abstract the authors presented at the 2013 IADR conference.

The paper and both abstracts were written by P.K.C.P. Panduwawala, who lost the travel grant, along with HKU’s former dean of dentistry L.P. Samaranayake; HKU’s associate dean for research L.J. Jin; and C.F. Zhang, part of HKU’s tissue engineering group.

The IADR’s page now lists the winners with a note at the bottom: Continue reading Dentistry student loses travel grant for duplicating his own work

Phantom authorship forces retraction of electron paper

ULTRAMICUltramicroscopy has retracted a paper it published earlier this year after the corresponding author admitted to submitting the paper without the consent of his colleagues.

The article, “The post-peak spectra in electron energy loss near edge structure,” came from a group led by one Feng Tian, a materials scientist at Shanghai University for Science and Technology. The other authors were Peter Shattschneider and Micheal Stoger-Pollach, of the Vienna University of Technology. Except that they weren’t.

According to the retraction notice: Continue reading Phantom authorship forces retraction of electron paper

PubPeer strikes again: Leukemia paper retracted for image duplications

bbaIn July, a PubPeer commenter called out a paper in Biochimica et Biophysica Acta for image duplication; by September, the paper was retracted for the exact reason detailed in the anonymous comment.

Here’s the notice for “Effect of ST3GAL 4 and FUT 7 on sialyl Lewis X synthesis and multidrug resistance in human acute myeloid leukemia,” a paper initially published in June: Continue reading PubPeer strikes again: Leukemia paper retracted for image duplications

Paper on circulating tumor cells taken out of circulation after lab error

medical oncologyA group of researchers at the Guangdong Academy of Medical Sciences in Guangzhou, China have retracted a paper that came out of a clinical trial on transarterial chemoembolization, a targeted kind of chemotherapy.

According to the notice, one of the authors mixed up the control samples with the clinical samples, and “could not recall which samples were in the wrong group.” The paper hasn’t yet been cited, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

Here’s the notice in Medical Oncology:

Continue reading Paper on circulating tumor cells taken out of circulation after lab error

Authors retract two spectroscopy papers when follow-up results don’t match

analytical methodsThe authors of two spectroscopy papers in Royal Society of Chemistry journals have retracted them.

Here’s the notice for “Determination of silk fibroin secondary structure by terahertz time domain spectroscopy” (free, but requires sign-in) in Analytical Methods, which is almost identical to this notice in Analyst: Continue reading Authors retract two spectroscopy papers when follow-up results don’t match

Failure to disclose drug company sponsor among litany of reasons for cancer retraction

tumor biologyThis one’s a real mess.

In June, a paper in Tumor Biology was retracted for at least four reasons, including bad data and hiding a trial sponsor (Merck). Some people who contributed work weren’t cited; at least one author had no idea his name would be on it. And that’s just what they tell us in the notice.

Here’s the notice for “Neutropenia and invasive fungal infection in patients with hematological malignancies treated with chemotherapy: a multicenter, prospective, non-interventional study in China:” Continue reading Failure to disclose drug company sponsor among litany of reasons for cancer retraction

Cell line switch sinks PLoS ONE cancer paper

plosWe’ve written before about how common cell line mix ups are in cancer research; according to a 2012 Wall Street Journal article (paywalled), between a fifth and a third of cancer cell lines tested by suspicious researchers turned out to be misidentified.

Obviously, mistakenly studying the wrong kind of cancer is a waste of precious resources, both time and money. And it’s clear the problem hasn’t gone away. PLoS ONE just retracted a cancer paper originally published in December 2012 for studying two cell lines that had been contaminated by other cell types.

Here’s the notice for “Epithelial Mesenchymal Transition Is Required for Acquisition of Anoikis Resistance and Metastatic Potential in Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma”:
Continue reading Cell line switch sinks PLoS ONE cancer paper