Since our recent coverage about a university investigation that led to multiple retractions for nursing researcher Moon-fai Chan, we’ve been alerted to a few more retractions and errata. His total is now at six retractions and four errata. Some of our finds were published this year, and some are a few years old. Most are due to duplication; … Continue reading More retractions, errata discovered for nursing researcher
Waseda University has revoked the doctorate degree of the first author on the now-retracted Nature papers about a technique to create stem cells. The technique — which claimed to provide a new way to nudge young cells from mice into pluripotency — was initially described in two 2014 Nature papers, both first-authored by Haruko Obokata. However, the … Continue reading University revokes PhD of first author on retracted STAP stem cell papers
JAMA Psychiatry has retracted and republished a paper on a cutting-edge procedure for patients with obsessive compulsive disorder. In the original paper, the authors claimed that three out of eight patients who underwent a procedure that used gamma rays to kill brain cells showed improvements 12 months later (versus zero in the group who underwent a “sham” procedure). But … Continue reading Journal retracts — and republishes — small study on gamma rays for OCD
DNA and Cell Biology has declared it will ban any authors who submit plagiarized manuscripts for three years, and will no longer accept suggestions of reviewers with non-institutional email addresses. The move comes after a wave of hundreds of retractions stemming from fake peer reviews, often occurring when authors supply fake emails for suggested reviewers. In an … Continue reading Biology journal bans plagiarizers, reviewers with non-institutional email addresses
The week at Retraction Watch featured a lot of movement on our leaderboard, with a new total for Diederik Stapel, and a new entry. It also featured a lot going on elsewhere, so here’s part I of Weekend Reads (we’ll have more tomorrow morning):
BioMed Central is investigating a recent paper about a potential biomarker for liver cancer, which shows signs it was written using another article as a template. According to Jeffrey Beall, who exposed the similarities between the two papers on his blog Scholarly Open Access yesterday, the paper in question is “obviously bogus,” and appears to have relied … Continue reading BMC investigating allegedly copied paper
We’ve done some digging, run the numbers, and present to you a new member of our leaderboard: orthopedic researcher Bernardino Saccomanni. Nine newly unearthed retractions of his make for a total of 14. We first reported on Saccomanni’s work back in 2011, and identified him as a “serial plagiarist.” In the years since, he’s continued to rack … Continue reading Serial plagiarist’s retractions upped to 14
The week at Retraction Watch featured a mysterious retraction from PLOS ONE, and a thoughtful piece by a scientist we’ve covered frequently on where we went wrong in that coverage. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
A common ailment known as duplication has taken down a paper about a common fungus and asthma. Aspergillus spores are often ubiquitous yet harmless, but can irritate people whose lungs aren’t in top working order. Duplication, on the other hand, is more universally deadly. The editors of The Pan African Medical Journal told us that, in addition to the retraction, there … Continue reading Journal bans authors of duplicated asthma paper
The week at Retraction Watch featured yet another case of fake peer review, and a court sentence for a Danish researcher found to have committed fraud. Here’s what was happening elsewhere (stay tuned for part 2 tomorrow):