The Journal of Immunology has retracted a 2011 paper on T cell activity after the authors decided they couldn’t stand by the reliability of the work.
The article was titled “Human Regulatory T Cells Require IL-35 To Mediate Suppression and Infectious Tolerance.” (On Pubmed the title has the rather ironic precursor “Cutting edge” in front). Here’s the abstract: Continue reading “Sufficient concern” about data prompts retraction of T-cell paper
Maybe it was a case of hitting the “send” button a bit too soon, or maybe it was a spasm of seller’s remorse, but a group of Chinese researchers has retracted a paper they’d published preliminarily a few months earlier.
The paper, “Antitumor and immunomodulatory activity of a polysaccharide from fungus Coprinus comatus (Mull.:Fr.) Gray,” by a group from various institutions in Shaanxi, appeared in April on the website of International Journal of Biological Macromolecules (as what appears to have been an uncorrected proof). But that didn’t stick.
According to a retraction notice dated August 2nd: Continue reading Anticancer-fungus paper retracted because some of the results “may be inaccurate”
Diederik Stapel is up to 54 retractions.
Here’s the notice from Self and Identity: Continue reading Measure by measure: Diederik Stapel count rises again, to 54
A group of international psychology researchers is retracting three papers in the wake of revelations that they failed to adequately safeguard the identities of the patients who participated in the studies.
So far, only one article has been formally retracted. That article, “Combining biofeedback and Narrative Exposure Therapy for persistent pain and PTSD in refugees: a pilot study,” appeared last year in the European Journal of Psychotramatology. Its authors were Naser Morina, Thomas Maier, Richard Bryant, Christine Knaevelsrud, Lutz Wittmann, Michael Rufer, Ulrich Schnyder and Julia Müller.
According to the notice: Continue reading Privacy breach prompts retraction of three papers from the trauma literature
The Journal of Neuro-Oncology has retracted a 2009 article on brain tumors for what’s clearly plagiarism — but which is called everything but.
The article was titled “Glioma grading: sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values of diffusion and perfusion imaging,” and it came from a group at the Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology, in Trivandrum, India.
Here’s the — rather laughable — retraction notice, which dances around the matter about as deftly as a freshman with the prom queen:
Continue reading Retraction notice for cancer paper gives wide berth to the “p” word
Alirio Melendez, who has already had 12 papers retracted from various journals and been found guilty of scientific misconduct by a former employer, has had a Science paper retracted.
Here’s the notice (which is behind a paywall): Continue reading Melendez Science paper retracted, making 13
In our work here at Retraction Watch, we’ve seen a number of euphemisms for plagiarism. (See slides 18-22 of this presentation for a selection.) Today, in following up on a case we covered last month, we’ve learned of a new way to avoid saying the dreaded p-word.
We reported in June that sex researcher Willibrord Weijmar Schultz had retracted two papers. One was for “substantial overlap between this paper and an earlier published paper by Talli Yehuda Rosenbaum,” while the other was for “breach of warranties made by the authors with respect to originality” and failure to cite a dissertation.
Two more retractions from Weijmar Schultz, for exactly the same reasons as the second one above, have just appeared. One was of a 1991 paper in Sexual and Marital Therapy (now Sexual and Relationship Therapy), while the other was of a 2003 article in the Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy.
The Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy notice reads as follows: Continue reading What’s the difference between plagiarism and “unintended and unknowing breach of copyright?”
The journal Memory has retracted a paper on repressed sexual abuse after a protracted dispute between the authors and an institutional investigation in The Netherlands that led to no findings of misconduct against the first author, Elke Geraerts — a rising star in the field of social psychology. (The title of hers TEDx talk, by the way, is “Resilience as a key to success.”)
The article, titled “Linking thought suppression and recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse,” was published in 2008 and has been cited 10 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. Here’s the retraction notice: Continue reading Bad Memory? Repressed sexual abuse memory paper retracted for data inconsistencies
Earlier this month we wrote about the retraction by Nature of a 19-year-old paper by Karel Bezouska, a former star researcher at Prague’s Charles University whose “dangerous and irresponsible deviations” from acceptable practice went as far as tampering with refrigerated samples to cover his tracks.
BMC Biotechnology has retracted another Bezouska paper, this one from 2011. He’s the second author on the article, titled “Heterologous expression, purification and characterization of nitrilase from Aspergillus niger K10.”
Continue reading Second retraction for Czech fraudster Bezouska, who broke into lab
University of Glasgow professor Foo Yew “Eddy” Liew, a Fellow of the Royal Society, has retracted a paper in Cellular Immunology because it duplicated one of his earlier papers in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Here’s the notice for “Expression and function of Toll-like receptor on T cells:”
Continue reading Leading immunologist retracts paper that duplicated 2004 PNAS study