Category: clinical study retractions

Psychological Science retracts a Sanna paper, citing lawyers, COPE…and Retraction Watch

In April 2011, we praised Psychological Science for its handling of a retraction. At the time, we went as far as to call the retraction notice a “model” of transparency for other journals to follow.

Well, they evidently took that compliment seriously, according to a new retraction notice for a paper by Lawrence Sanna. Sanna left Michigan under a cloud a few months ago after another scientist found his data statistically implausible, as Ed Yong reported in Nature.

The newly retracted paper, “Construing collective concerns: Increasing cooperation by broadening construals in social dilemmas,” was published in 2009 while Sanna was still at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Here’s a sample from the abstract: Continue reading Psychological Science retracts a Sanna paper, citing lawyers, COPE…and Retraction Watch

Cancer journal pulls deeply flawed meeting abstract on breast surgery

The European Journal of Surgical Oncology has retracted a meeting abstract that evidently was never meant to be.

The study, by researchers at Queen Elizabeth Hospital and Good Hope Hospital, both in Birmingham, England, was to be presented at this year’s annual meeting of the Association of Breast Surgery and purported to compare rates of patient satisfaction among women who underwent two kinds of breast reconstruction, TRAM — transverse rectus abdominis myocutaneous  — flap and DIEP (short for deep inferior epigastric perforators) flap.

But according to the notice: Continue reading Cancer journal pulls deeply flawed meeting abstract on breast surgery

Prostate cancer researcher who retracted two studies at center of lawsuit departs Hopkins

Robert Getzenberg, the Johns Hopkins prostate cancer researcher who has recently retracted two papers involved in work he was sued over, has left the university, Retraction Watch has learned.

Getzenberg, who directed the Research Laboratories at the Hopkins’ Brady Urological Institute, has been working on an alternative to the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test. In 2009, he — along with Hopkins and Pitt, his former employer — was sued by a company that funded his work, Science magazine reported at the time. The suits were eventually settled for an undisclosed amount, and Getzenberg and his colleagues have now retracted two papers, one in Urology and one in The Prostate, as we’ve reported. Continue reading Prostate cancer researcher who retracted two studies at center of lawsuit departs Hopkins

Plagiarism topples paper co-authored by top tamoxifen scientist

Expert Opinion on Pharmacotherapy has retracted a 2011 paper for plagiarism by two authors, one of whom, V. Craig Jordan, is a leading researcher on the class of drugs known as selective estrogen receptor modulators, or SERMs, and is credited with discovering the anti-tumor properties of the breast cancer drug tamoxifen.

Jordan, who is scientific director at the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center at Georgetown University, appears to have been unaware of the offense when the paper was published. Here’s the notice: Continue reading Plagiarism topples paper co-authored by top tamoxifen scientist

Three more retractions for Diederik Stapel

We apologize for what must seem like a constant drip, drip, drip, but we have three more retractions from Diederik Stapel to report, all from the European Journal of Social Psychology.

The first, in order of publication date, involves a 2006 paper by Stapel and co-author Camille Johnson — whose name has appeared on several other of Stapel’s retracted papers — titled “When nothing compares to me: How defensive motivations and similarity shape social comparison effects.”

The notice reads: Continue reading Three more retractions for Diederik Stapel

Another retraction for potential prostate cancer test from Hopkins

Earlier this year, we reported on the case of Robert Getzenberg of Johns Hopkins, who retracted a 2007 paper in Urology that was “at the center of two 2009 lawsuits brought by a company that funded the work.”

Getzenberg has now retracted a related paper,  “Analysis of a serum test for prostate cancer that detects a second epitope of EPCA-2,” published in The Prostate in 2009 and cited nine times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

The notice in The Prostate goes further than the one in Urology, using the word “falsification:” Continue reading Another retraction for potential prostate cancer test from Hopkins

Hmmm: SAGE’s attorney explains why weight loss retraction notices said less than those of other journals

In May, we broke the story of Edward Shang, a weight loss surgeon who made up most, if not all, of the patients he reported on in at least one study. We’ve been following the case since then, including three more retractions in the Journal of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (JPEN).

As we noted in a June 22 post, the notices in JPEN were a bit more lean than the first notice we found, in Surgery for Obesity and Related Diseases. The latter read: Continue reading Hmmm: SAGE’s attorney explains why weight loss retraction notices said less than those of other journals

University of Michigan psychologist resigns following concerns by statistical sleuth Simonsohn: Nature

A second psychology researcher has resigned after statistical scrutiny of his papers by another psychologist revealed data that was too good to be true.

Ed Yong, writing in Nature, reports that Lawrence Sanna, most recently of the University of Michigan, left his post at the end of May. That was several months after Uri Simonsohn, a University of Pennsylvania psychology researcher, presented Sanna, his co-authors, and Sanna’s former institution, the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, with evidence of “odd statistical patterns.”

Simonsohn is the researcher who also forced an investigation into the work of Dirk Smeesters, who resigned last month. Last week, Yong reported that Simonsohn had uncovered another case that hadn’t been made official yet.

According to today’s story, Sanna has asked the editor of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology — which is also retracting one of Smeesters’ papers — to retract three papers published from 2009 to 2011. These are the three he seems to have published there during that time: Continue reading University of Michigan psychologist resigns following concerns by statistical sleuth Simonsohn: Nature

Elsevier parasitology journal retracts paper after finding author made up peer reviewer email addresses

Note to authors: If a journal asks you to suggest reviewers for your submitted manuscript, don’t thank them by faking the reviewer’s emails.

You might just get caught.

That’s what happened recently at Experimental Parasitology, according to the retraction notice for “Entamoeba histolytica: Cloning, expression and evaluation of the efficacy of a recombinant amebiasis cysteine proteinase gene (ACP1) antigen in minipig:” Continue reading Elsevier parasitology journal retracts paper after finding author made up peer reviewer email addresses

Pulp fiction: doubtful “veracity” leads to retraction of endodontics paper

This one’s like taking candy from a baby.

The Journal of Endodontics — or JOE — has retracted a 2011 article (its online date) on the prospects of tissue engineering for the mouth by a group of Chinese authors who appear to have tried to pass bogus data into print.

The paper was titled “Mineralized Tissue Formation by Bone Morphogenetic Protein-7–transfected Pulp Stem Cells“. According to the notice: Continue reading Pulp fiction: doubtful “veracity” leads to retraction of endodontics paper