Category: clinical study retractions

Two detailed retraction notices correct the cardiology record

jaccTwo American College of Cardiology conference abstracts published earlier this year in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC) have been retracted, one because the authors were actually measuring something other than what they reported, and the other because newer software invalidated the results.

Here’s the notice for “Worsening of Pre-Existing Valvulopathy With A New Obesity Drug Lorcaserin, A Selective 5-Hydroxytryptamine 2C Receptor Agonist: A Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials” by Hemang B. Panchal, Parthav Patel, Brijal Patel, Rakeshkumar Patel, and Henry Philip of East Tennessee State University: Continue reading Two detailed retraction notices correct the cardiology record

Henry IV, part 2: No retraction necessary, say some authors of royal head identification paper

Henry IV, via Wikimedia
Henry IV, via Wikimedia

Last week, we reported that some of the authors of a 2010 paper in the BMJ claiming to have identified Henry IV’s head thought the study should be retracted based on new evidence. Some of the other authors have now responded to that call for retraction, which appeared on the BMJ’s site alongside the paper.

Philippe Charlier, the corresponding author of the original paper, and five of the original paper’s 15 co-authors conclude after reviewing the evidence that

Continue reading Henry IV, part 2: No retraction necessary, say some authors of royal head identification paper

JBC issues correction for paper by Khachigian, who has had four others retracted

jbc1113The Journal of Biological Chemistry has a fairly gory correction — we’d call it a mega-correction — for a 2010 paper by Levon Khachigian, an Australian researcher whose studies of a new drug for skin cancer recently were halted over concerns about possible misconduct, including image manipulation. As we reported earlier this year, Khachigian has already lost four papers, including one in the JBC — which the journal simply noted had “been withdrawn by the authors.”

The new correction involves the article “c-Jun regulates shear- and injury-inducible Egr-1 expression, vein graft stenosis after autologous end-to-side transplantation in rabbits, and intimal hyperplasia in human saphenous veins,” which Khachigian wrote with Jun Ni and Alla Waldman. The paper has been cited nine times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. Here’s the notice: Continue reading JBC issues correction for paper by Khachigian, who has had four others retracted

Retraction for authors of muscle paper who lifted data from their own 18-year-old article

janatFor the second time in a week, we’ve seen a journal retract a paper because it duplicated something in its own archive. Yesterday, it was a case of plagiarism in a plant journal. Today, we find that the Journal of Anatomy has retracted an article it published earlier this year by a group of Slovenian authors who took a page (or several) out of their 1995 article in the same periodical.

The article, “Muscles within muscles: a tensiomyographic and histochemical analysis of the normal human vastus medialis longus and vastus medialis obliquus muscles,” came from researchers in the department of orthopedic surgery at the University Medical Centre in Ljubjana. According to the abstract: Continue reading Retraction for authors of muscle paper who lifted data from their own 18-year-old article

NEJM paper on sleep apnea retracted when original data can’t be found

nejmThe authors of a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine are retracting it, after being unable to find data supporting a table that required corrections.

Here’s the notice: Continue reading NEJM paper on sleep apnea retracted when original data can’t be found

Off with his paper! Some authors want to retract claim to have identified Henry IV’s head

Henry IV, via Wikimedia
Henry IV, via Wikimedia

The BMJ is well-known for its annual Christmas issue, which New York Times medical correspondent Lawrence Altman calls

a lighter and sometimes brighter side of medicine, publishing unusual articles that vary from simply amusing to bizarre to creative or potentially important.

The 2010 issue was no exception, featuring a paper called “Multidisciplinary medical identification of a French king’s head (Henri IV)” in which: Continue reading Off with his paper! Some authors want to retract claim to have identified Henry IV’s head

Dispute over data rights forces retraction of obesity paper

bmcresnotesA group of researchers in South Africa has lost their 2012 article in BMC Research Notes after one of the author’s institutions evidently pulled rank and sought to claim the data as its own.

The article, “Association of body weight and physical activity with blood pressure in a rural population in the Dikgale village of Limpopo Province in South Africa,” appeared last February. Its first author was Seth Mkhonto, who listed two affiliations, the Human Sciences Research Council, in Pretoria, and the University of the Limpopo.

But the latter institution seems not to have given Mkhonto approval to publish the data — a rather strange state of affairs given the whole “publish or perish” ethos of academia.

According to the retraction notice: Continue reading Dispute over data rights forces retraction of obesity paper

Nursing journal pulls Novo Nordisk growth hormone paper over data provenance

j peds nursingThe Journal of Pediatric Nursing has retracted a 2013 article (meeting abstract, really) on growth hormone after the drug company that employed the authors cried “take it back.”

The research appears to have been presented at a meeting of the Pediatric Endocrinology Nursing Society, and looked at inefficiency in the use of devices for administering growth hormone.  All but one of the authors is listed as working for Novo Nordisk, an international pharmaceutical firm.

Here’s the notice: Continue reading Nursing journal pulls Novo Nordisk growth hormone paper over data provenance

Italian cancer specialist facing criminal investigation for misconduct

Institute of Endocrinology and Experimental Oncology
Institute of Endocrinology and Experimental Oncology

A leading Neapolitan cancer researcher is under criminal investigation for fraud, the Italian press is reporting.

Although we have only rough translations of the story, it seems the researcher, Alfredo Fusco, of the National Council of Research’s Institute of Experimental Endocrinology and Oncology, has been accused of manipulating images in published studies and to strengthen the case for grants from the Italian Association for Cancer Research (AIRC).

The case covers eight papers published between 2001 and 2012, according to the media reports. We don’t know the specifics of the eight articles, nor why none appears yet to have been retracted. In our experience, the criminal inquiries usually follow the expose of scientific misconduct, not the other way around.

Fusco’s work is highly cited, with some 50 papers cited at least 100 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

According to the institute’s website: Continue reading Italian cancer specialist facing criminal investigation for misconduct

Cardiology researcher faked data in his prizewinning PhD thesis — and NIH, AHA grants: ORI

nitin_aggarwal
Nitin Aggarwal

Nitin Aggarwal, formerly of the Medical College of Wisconsin, faked data in his PhD thesis, grant applications to the NIH and American Heart Association, and in two papers, according to new findings by the Office of Research Integrity.

(The case would have apparently first been published in the Federal Register on October 2, except for the government shutdown.)

Here were their findings: Continue reading Cardiology researcher faked data in his prizewinning PhD thesis — and NIH, AHA grants: ORI