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Oxford University Press clarifies policy: All retraction notices will be open access

Last week, we reported on an uniformative retraction notice in Molecular Biology and Evolution (MBE), an Oxford University Press (OUP) title, that the publisher wanted $32 to read. To OUP’s credit, they quickly acknowledged that the retraction hadn’t been handled properly. Earlier this week, OUP’s senior publisher for journals Cathy Kennedy followed up with some … Continue reading Oxford University Press clarifies policy: All retraction notices will be open access

Science genetics paper retracted after “unfortunate mistake”

Sometime last year, the University of Zurich’s Erik Postma was reading a paper in Science titled “Additive Genetic Breeding Values Correlate with the Load of Partially Deleterious Mutations” when he realized something. The authors, led by Joseph Tomkins of the University of Western Australia, had made a mistake. Postma set to writing a “Technical Comment,” the … Continue reading Science genetics paper retracted after “unfortunate mistake”

Update on Journal of Neuroscience retractions: Authors being investigated. Plus, editor explains why notices say nothing

We have updates on the two mysterious Journal of Neuroscience retractions we reported on yesterday. One is that we have learned that there is a university investigation into the work of one of the teams that retracted one of the studies. More on that in a bit. Two, the journal’s editor, John Maunsell, responded to … Continue reading Update on Journal of Neuroscience retractions: Authors being investigated. Plus, editor explains why notices say nothing

A mysterious retraction in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology

The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology has retracted a 2009 abstract, but don’t ask us why. The retraction notice for “Children with asthma and no URTI, more commonly have rhinovirus in their exhaled breath, than in mucous,” is another one we’ll file under “opaque“:

In retraction notice, Bulfone-Paus “declares” data and conclusions confirmed; journals accept six more retractions

There was more news today about papers co-authored by Silvia Bulfone-Paus, whose lab at Research Centre Borstel has been under investigation for scientific misconduct. The EMBO Journal, which we reported last month had accepted the retraction of a 2005 Bulfone-Paus paper that has been cited 37 times, published the retraction notice for the study today: … Continue reading In retraction notice, Bulfone-Paus “declares” data and conclusions confirmed; journals accept six more retractions

Top Retraction Watch posts of 2010, and a short wish list for 2011

2010 was a busy year at Retraction Watch. (Well, actually the first seven months of it weren’t busy at all, since we didn’t launch until August.) We’ve published 88 posts, an average of about four per week. We no longer wonder whether we’ll have enough material to post frequently, as Adam told The New York … Continue reading Top Retraction Watch posts of 2010, and a short wish list for 2011

Irony alert: Shades of plagiarism undo med ethics paper on terminal care

With some conservatives fulminating over President Obama’s eternal lust for “death panels,” we have our own case of end-of-life outrage to report. BMC Medical Ethics has retracted a November 2010 paper by two authors from Mayo Clinic whose manuscript — “End-of-life discontinuation of destination therapy with cardiac and ventilatory support medical devices: physician-assisted death or … Continue reading Irony alert: Shades of plagiarism undo med ethics paper on terminal care

Small problem: Nano-micro journal pulls diabetes paper with phony figure

Readers of this blog are aware that many of the retractions we’ve covered involve the misadventures of post-docs. That makes some superficial sense: post-docs, after all, are trainees, and therefore might be more likely to make mistakes. They’re also hungry to break into their chosen specialty, and how better to do that than by producing … Continue reading Small problem: Nano-micro journal pulls diabetes paper with phony figure

Journal of the American Chemical Society retracts gold nanoparticle paper

On October 20, the Journal of the American Chemical Society retracted a 2009 paper. The retraction notice for “Single Gold Nanoparticles Counter: An Ultrasensitive Detection Platform for One-Step Homogeneous Immunoassays and DNA Hybridization Assays” was somewhat opaque: This article is being retracted due to inaccurate DNA hybridization detection results caused by application of an incorrect … Continue reading Journal of the American Chemical Society retracts gold nanoparticle paper

Leading cancer scientist retracts two papers, one 14 years old, but journal won’t say why

One of the world’s leading cancer researchers, Axel Ullrich of Germany, has retracted two papers published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. Ullrich, director of microbiology at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, has been a central figure in many groundbreaking discoveries, from the development of genetically engineered insulin to the identification of the breast … Continue reading Leading cancer scientist retracts two papers, one 14 years old, but journal won’t say why