A journal has accepted the sixth retraction of a paper co-authored by Silvia Bulfone-Paus, the Research Centre Borstel announced late last week. Borstel has been investigating allegations that two of Bulfone-Paus’s former postdocs manipulated images.
The paper, in the Scandinavian Journal of Immunology, is titled Continue reading Sixth Bulfone-Paus retraction accepted
We’ve had two questions since learning of the fraud case involving Naoki Mori: Who discovered the manipulations? And how?
We now have answers. We recently received an e-mail from a researcher who specializes in Mori’s field — cancer viruses — and who claims to have been a reviewer of a paper he submitted early last year to a journal in his field. (We’re obscuring some details to maintain our source’s anonymity.)
During what turned out to be a “painful” review of the manuscript: Continue reading Cracking the Mori case: A reviewer describes how manipulated images came to light
In August, we reported on the retraction of a paper in Virology Journal about whether a woman allegedly cured by Jesus Christ had the flu or some other ailment. The original paper was published on July 21, 2010. On August 11, after a flurry of criticism from various bloggers, the journal’s editor, Robert Garry, apologized for publishing it in a comment. On the 13th, the journal published a retraction notice.
But as an eagle-eyed Retraction Watch reader has pointed out, the original paper, and its abstract, both remain online, without any suggestion that the paper was retracted. We found that puzzling, so we called Garry, of Tulane’s department of microbiology and immunology. Continue reading Resurrection? Paper about Jesus and the flu remains online, not marked as retracted
The retraction last week of a commentary in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (JNCI) looks like a nice — and very quick — example of self-correction in science.
The commentary, “Designing a randomized clinical trial to evaluate personalized medicine: a new approach based on risk prediction,” was co-authored by Stuart Baker and Daniel Sargent, and published in the December 1, 2010 issue. The journal published the retraction, and a letter that contained the re-analysis that led to it, on January 12.
The retraction notice: Continue reading A lightning-fast JNCI retraction shows how science should work
About two weeks ago, we reported on the first retraction of a paper co-authored by Silvia Bulfone-Paus, whose work at her Research Center Borstel lab is being investigated for misconduct. On Friday, Borstel announced that journals had accepted four more retractions of papers by Bulfone-Paus’s group.
Three of those papers are in the Journal of Immunology (citations according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge): Continue reading Four more Bulfone-Paus paper retractions accepted
Salon today retracted a controversial 2005 story by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. about an alleged link between autism and thimerosal, the mercury-based preservative formerly used in vaccines.
As Salon explains in their retraction notice, the online magazine had co-published the piece with Rolling Stone. The notice reads, in part: Continue reading Salon retracts 2005 Robert F. Kennedy Jr. piece on alleged autism-vaccine link
Late last month we wrote about a handful of retractions involving Naoki Mori, a promising Japanese cancer researcher who appears to have built a CV with the help of fabricated evidence.
The fraud earned Mori a 10-year publishing ban from the American Society of Microbiology, which publishes Infection and Immunity. There were two other retractions in Blood, from the American Society of Hematology.
Now, another journal has joined the party. Continue reading Fraud by Naoki Mori claims another paper, this one in a journal whose board he sits on
A quick post this Sunday morning to draw your attention to two must-read items for anyone interested in the Anil Potti case or in how one goes about checking data. (A second paper by Potti et al was officially retracted on Friday.)
First, a terrific profile of Joyce Shoffner in the Charlotte News & Observer. Shoffner
was one of 110 Duke patients enrolled in three clinical trials based on the research of Dr. Anil Potti, who resigned in November as an associate professor at Duke.
Here at Retraction Watch, we obviously think all retractions are worth following. But we hope this story will convince those who shrug and say such items are inside baseball, or “none of your damn business,” that they need to re-evaluate their positions. This is where the rubber hits the road: Continue reading Update on Anil Potti: A patient in a trial based on retracted research speaks out; Baggerly on how to prevent the next fiasco
Nature Medicine has retracted a paper that Anil Potti’s co-author, Joseph Nevins, requested be withdrawn in November.
This is the second retraction of a paper by Potti, who resigned from his post at Duke in November in the midst of an investigation into scientific misconduct. The first retraction was in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
According to the Nature Medicine retraction notice: Continue reading Nature Medicine makes it official, retracting Anil Potti paper
At least one of the dominoes may be falling from a scandal at Research Center Borstel.
Retraction Watch has learned that one of six papers that an investigation found to include data manipulation will be retracted by the Journal of Leukocyte Biology. The paper, “ATP induces P2X7 receptor-independent cytokine and chemokine expression through P2X1 and P2X3 receptors in murine mast cells,” includes Silvia Bulfone-Paus as a co-author. The retraction notice will appear in the March issue of the journal, editor Luis Montaner told Retraction Watch today.
Bulfone-Paus is at the center of a complex case, and we’ll refer you to Nature‘s excellent coverage. As Nature reported last month: Continue reading Paper by Silvia Bulfone-Paus to be retracted