Search Results for: sting

Lawsuit couldn’t stop four retractions for diabetes researcher

Four expressions of concern in the journal Diabetes have turned into retractions for Mario Saad, a move which he had tried to stop with a lawsuit. Last August, a judge dismissed Saad’s suit against the American Diabetes Association, which publishes Diabetes, concluding that the expressions of concerns on the papers were not defamation, but part of an “ongoing … Continue reading Lawsuit couldn’t stop four retractions for diabetes researcher

Chemist fighting to keep PhD asks University of Texas to pay $95k in legal fees

After the University of Texas postponed a hearing to determine whether it should revoke a chemist’s PhD, her lawyer has filed a motion to stop the proceedings, and requested the school pay her $95,099 in lawyer fees and expenses. This is the second time UT has threatened to revoke Suvi Orr‘s PhD, following a 2012 retraction for a … Continue reading Chemist fighting to keep PhD asks University of Texas to pay $95k in legal fees

Poll: Should there be a way to “self-retract” for honest error?

This week in Nature, Daniele Fanelli at Stanford made an interesting proposal: Set up a system of “self-retraction” that makes it crystal clear when a paper is pulled for honest error, rather than misconduct. Fanelli, a whose work we have frequently covered, rightly notes that honest error represents a minority of retractions — around 20%. … Continue reading Poll: Should there be a way to “self-retract” for honest error?

Biologist’s research under investigation in Sweden after being questioned on PubPeer

The University of Gothenburg in Sweden is investigating several papers co-authored by biologist Suchitra Sumitran-Holgersson after they were challenged on PubPeer. Sumitran-Holgersson already has one retraction under her belt — of a 2005 Blood paper, after another investigation concluded the results “cannot be considered reliable.” Sumitran-Holgersson and her husband, co-author Jan Holgersson, did not sign the retraction notice. Both were … Continue reading Biologist’s research under investigation in Sweden after being questioned on PubPeer

“A big mistake:” Paper about the dangers of Wi-Fi pulled for plagiarism

A report that presents guidelines for treating people allegedly harmed by signals from Wi-Fi and mobile phones was pulled two weeks after publication for plagiarism. However, the retraction note, published in the March issue of Reviews on Environmental Health, doesn’t use the word “plagiarism,” and instead blames the move on lost citations and errors. The editor of the journal, David Carpenter, told us … Continue reading “A big mistake:” Paper about the dangers of Wi-Fi pulled for plagiarism

FDA bans trial coordinator who pocketed patient funds and went to prison

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has permanently debarred a clinical trial coordinator from working on drug applications after he swapped patient stool samples for his own, and pocketed the money earmarked for patients — along with forging patient records, lab work, and doctors’ signatures. The debarment is moot for time being — last … Continue reading FDA bans trial coordinator who pocketed patient funds and went to prison

Fake email address — for author, not reviewer — fells another paper

We’ve seen many cases of researchers creating fake email addresses to impersonate reviewers that usher their paper to publication. But in the latest fake email incident, a journal is retracting a paper on liver cancer after the first author created a phony address for the last and corresponding author. Both are researchers at Zhengzhou University in China. This … Continue reading Fake email address — for author, not reviewer — fells another paper

“Evidence-based medicine has been hijacked:” A confession from John Ioannidis

John Ioannidis is perhaps best known for a 2005 paper “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False.” One of the most highly cited researchers in the world, Ioannidis, a professor at Stanford, has built a career in the field of meta-research. Earlier this month, he published a heartfelt and provocative essay in the the Journal … Continue reading “Evidence-based medicine has been hijacked:” A confession from John Ioannidis

Authorship, funding misstatements force retraction of satellite study

Remote Sensing Letters has retracted a 2015 paper by a pair of researchers in China because the duo was in fact a solo, and the manuscript lied about its funding source. The article, “A novel method of feature extraction and fusion and its application in satellite images classification,” purportedly was written by Da Lin and Xin … Continue reading Authorship, funding misstatements force retraction of satellite study

Algorithm paper retracted for “significant overlap” with another

A paper on a hybrid algorithm turned out to be a hybrid itself — some original data, plus some from a paper that the authors had published earlier. According to the retraction note, the overlap was significant enough to pull it from the scientific record. The retracted paper describes an algorithm that is the combination of a “genetic … Continue reading Algorithm paper retracted for “significant overlap” with another