If Retraction Watch was actually a business, as opposed — for the moment, anyway — to a labor of love for two guys with day jobs, 2011 would have been a very good year for business. It was a year that will probably see close to 400 retractions, including a number of high-profile ones, once … Continue reading The Year of the Retraction: A look back at 2011
When is a retraction not a retraction? Why, when it’s a correction, of course — like the one the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases issued this month: In the article Reassortment of Ancient Neuraminidase and Recent Hemagglutinin in Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 Virus (P. Bhoumik, A.L. Hughes), errors were made in selection of the hemagglutinin (HA) and … Continue reading Retraction (in all but name) of flu paper raises eyebrows
Four neurology journals have retracted articles by a Japanese researcher who admitted to having made “mistakes” in his handling of data. Although the cases are related, the way the journals have handled the notices is startlingly different. One chose to say nothing, one chose to say little, while two went for full — or at … Continue reading The ‘Goldilocks’ retraction? Revealing differences in how several neurology journals handled related problems
Today marks the 1-year anniversary of the launch of Retraction Watch. We’d like to thank our readers, tipsters, and fans for your support and feedback — and our helpful critics who have spurred us to do better. Over the past 12 months we’ve written more than 250 posts about retractions ranging from the extraordinary — think … Continue reading Happy anniversary, Retraction Watch: What we’ve learned, and what’s in store for year two
As more and more journals enroll in CrossCheck, designed to ferret out cases of plagiarism, it’s to be expected that the number of papers retracted for copying and pasting will increase. Sometimes, that plagiarism is actually duplication of material that the same authors have published elsewhere, while other times it’s good old-fashioned plagiarism of someone … Continue reading Retractions we haven’t had a chance to cover, part 3: Another duplication and plagiarism edition
A team of Australian medical writers who analyzed four decades worth of retractions has reached the conclusion — we trust you’re sitting — that people in their profession are more honest than, well, the rest of us. According to the authors, articles in the medical literature are substantially less likely than other papers to be … Continue reading Want to avoid a retraction? Hire a medical writer, say medical writers
Retraction Watch readers will no doubt have realized by now that we are often frustrated by the opacity of many of the retraction notices we cover. And some critics may wonder if we’re overstating that case. Well, wonder no more. In a study published online yesterday in the Journal of Medical Ethics, Liz Wager and … Continue reading Why was that paper retracted? Peer-reviewed evidence that Retraction Watch isn’t crazy
We have a bizarre tale to relate involving the journal Surgery News, which recently lost its editor-in-chief over a rather strange editorial he wrote in the February issue of the magazine. The ill-fated — and, we’ll stipulate, ill-advised — commentary has led to a de facto retraction of the entire publication — meaning that although … Continue reading Forget chocolate on Valentine’s Day, try semen, says Surgery News editor. Retraction, resignation follow
Last October, Retraction Watch readers will recall, up-and-coming stem cell researcher Amy Wagers retracted a study in Nature describing how her team rejuvenated blood-forming stem cells in older mice. Shane Mayack, a postdoc in Wagers’ lab who had been dismissed after an inquiry into what happened, did not sign that retraction. Since then, Mayack … Continue reading In a retraction’s wake: Postdoc Shane Mayack, dismissed from Amy Wagers’ stem cell lab, speaks out
Sometimes, things just don’t add up. Take this retraction notice, from the March 2011 issue of Applied Mathematics Letters: This article has been retracted at the request of the editor as the authors have falsified mathematical findings and have made unsubstantiated claims regarding Euclid’s parallel postulate (Appl. Math. Lett. 23 (2010) 1137–1139. doi:10.1016/j.aml.2010.05.003). This article … Continue reading Faked data, unsubstantiated claims, and spirituality add up to a math journal retraction