corrections – Retraction Watch

Exclusive: PLOS ONE to correct 1,000 papers, add author proof step

The megajournal PLOS ONE will be correcting about 1,000 papers over the next few months, Retraction Watch has learned, and will add an author proof step – a first for the journal.

The corrections are for “errors in author names, affiliations, titles and references; to make minor updates to the acknowledgements, funding statements, and data availability statements, among other minor issues,” PLOS ONE head of communications David Knutson told us. He continued:

This batch of corrections does not reflect a recent change in the journal’s quality control standards or processes. Rather, we are clearing a backlog that accumulated during a 2-year period when minor corrections were deprioritized and resources were diverted to other areas. PLOS ONE is in the process of implementing an author proof step so that in the future such errors can be identified and addressed prior to publication.

Study of music by Mozart includes tunes “not necessarily music composed by Mozart”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a child prodigy – famously writing music at an age when other children need lullabies to help them to fall asleep.

Despite how prolific he was, however, Mozart did not write an album called “Bedtime Mozart.” That has now created a headache for the authors of a study published in Pediatric Research in August that found the particular set of melodies helped soothe babies during a particular blood test.

Like many “Mozart Effect” studies before it, the new research prompted a press release referring to Mozart in its headline, and plenty of press coverage. But Hinnerk Feldwisch-Drentrup, a correspondent for Frankfurter Allgemeine, thought something was off-key:

Authors to correct PNAS ‘nudge’ paper that cites now-retracted article in the same journal

The authors of a paper on “nudge experiments” published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) plan to correct it following questions about some of its conclusions and citations, Retraction Watch has learned.

Following up on comments by Aaron Charlton and Nick Brown, Columbia University’s Andrew Gelman, who is deeply skeptical of the findings, raised several questions about the paper in a post on January 7. Among them were that the paper cites 11 articles by food marketing researcher Brian Wansink, whom Retraction Watch readers may recall resigned from his post at Cornell following an investigation and has had 17 papers retracted, one of them twice.

Gelman also notes that the paper cites a paper by Dan Ariely and colleagues that was retracted in September. We’ll focus here on the inclusion of that reference.

Co-corresponding author Tobias Brosch, of the University of Geneva, responded within hours of Gelman’s post, writing in part:

AHA journal tones down abstract linking COVID-19 vaccines to risk of heart problems

The American Heart Association has published a corrected version of a controversial meeting abstract which claimed to show that Covid-19 vaccinations “dramatically” increased a person’s risk for serious heart problems.

The study was the work of Stephen Gundry, a cardiac surgeon who now sells dietary supplements of questionable efficacy on his website. Gundry also sees patients at the Center for Restorative Medicine and International Heart & Lung Institute in California and offers advice on YouTube.

Gundry submitted the abstract, titled “Mrna COVID Vaccines Dramatically Increase Endothelial Inflammatory Markers and ACS Risk as Measured by the PULS Cardiac Test: a Warning,” to the AHA’s 2021 scientific meeting, which apparently accepted it without much, if any, review.

At the end of November, after fielding complaints about the study, the AHA issued an expression of concern for the abstract, which was riddled with spelling errors – including calling the PULS test the “PLUS” test in the first sentence, where any reader could immediately spot the mistake – and other problems:

Duke engineering prof corrects seven papers for failures to disclose startup he co-founded

A chemistry journal has issued corrections for seven papers after learning that one of the authors failed to list his ownership of a company with a stake in the research.

The articles, which appeared in Lab on a Chip — a journal “at the interface between physical technological advancements and high impact applications” from the Royal Society of Chemistry — came from the lab of Tony Jun Huang, of Duke University in Durham, N.C. Huang, who holds the William Bevan Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science at Duke, is a prominent figure in the field. According to his bio:

Authors to correct influential Imperial College COVID-19 report after learning it cited a withdrawn preprint

A March paper by researchers at Imperial College London that, in the words of the Washington Post, “helped upend U.S. and U.K. coronavirus strategies,” cited a preprint that had been withdrawn.

Retraction Watch became aware of the issue after being contacted by a PubPeer commenter who had noted the withdrawal earlier this month. Following questions from Retraction Watch this weekend, the authors said they plan to submit a correction.

In March, the New York Times wrote:

An awkward correction later, these researchers have a warning for would-be authors

Mitchell Knutson learned to take a journal’s policies seriously the hard way.

Early in 2017, Knutson, a professor at the University of Florida in Gainesville who studies iron metabolism, had findings he and his team were excited about publishing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). So they submitted a manuscript on January 30. Continue reading An awkward correction later, these researchers have a warning for would-be authors

Caught Our Notice: A paper mistakenly ID’d a patient. Its retraction notice did, too. (Oops!)

What Caught Our Attention: Last year, a journal retracted a paper about a child who developed a rare complication related to the inherited disorder Gaucher Disease, after realizing it had inadvertently identified the child. It wasn’t an immediately obvious mistake — the authors listed the drugs the patient was taking, and in the case of one drug, there was only one child in the world taking it. For anyone in the know, that would make the child’s identity clear.

So retracting the paper makes sense — but publishing a retraction notice that spells out the issue in detail, including the name of the drug and the fact the patient was the only pediatric recipient, did not. So last month, the Journal of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology corrected the retraction notice, removing the name of the drug. (Phew.)

Continue reading Caught Our Notice: A paper mistakenly ID’d a patient. Its retraction notice did, too. (Oops!)

Caught Our Notice: Climate change leads to more…neurosurgery for polar bears?

Title: Internet Blogs, Polar Bears, and Climate-Change Denial by Proxy

What Caught Our Attention: There’s a lot going on here, so bear with us. (Ba-dum-bum.)

First, there was the paper itself, co-authored by, among others, Michael Mann and Stephan Lewandowsky. Both names may be familiar to Retraction Watch readers. Mann is a prominent climate scientist who has sued the National Review for defamation. A study by Lewandowsky and colleagues of “the role of conspiracist ideation in climate denial” was the subject of several Retraction Watch posts when it was retracted and then republished in a different form. And the conclusion of the new paper, in Bioscience, seemed likely to draw the ire of many who objected to the earlier work: Continue reading Caught Our Notice: Climate change leads to more…neurosurgery for polar bears?

Caught Our Notice: Yes, a 20-year-old article is wrong — but it won’t be corrected online

Title: AMPA receptor-mediated regulation of a Gi-protein in cortical neurons

What Caught Our Attention: Usually, when journals publish corrections to articles, they also correct the original article, except when the original is unavailable online. When Nature noticed that some figure panels in a 20-year-old paper were duplicated, it flagged the issue for readers — but didn’t correct the online version of the original paper. According to the notice, the duplications don’t disturb the conclusion illustrated by the figure, the original data couldn’t be found, and the last two authors had retired. We contacted a spokesperson at Nature, who told us “the information at the start of the paper clearly links to the corrigendum.” Continue reading Caught Our Notice: Yes, a 20-year-old article is wrong — but it won’t be corrected online

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: