As readers of this blog know, we’re fond of highlighting euphemisms, particularly for plagiarism: “inadvertently copied text,” “a significant originality issue” and and “inclusion of significant passages of unattributed material from other authors” come to mind.
But here’s a euphemism for “bullshit” that’s new to us.
Continue reading Authors admit they “published the paper without completely studying their work.”
This post was updated at 1145 UTC on August 13, 2021. In the original post, we noted that Joseph Powell and Gibran Hemani had not responded to our request for comment, which we sent shortly after learning under embargo from Nature that this retraction would be published. However, Powell did respond, copying Hemani, as Powell noted in a Twitter thread, and the email never reached us. We have added Powell’s comments, and updated the first sentence of the post to reflect them. We are also investigating why Powell’s email never arrived. We apologize for the errors regardless of the cause, and appreciate the opportunity to update.
The authors of a 2014 research letter in Nature have retracted their article, with near but not entire unanimity, after “new work led to interpretation of the original results being no longer fully valid,” according to the senior author.
Titled “Detection and replication of epistasis influencing transcription in humans,” the letter was written by a group from Australia, Europe and the United States led by Gibran Hemani, then of the University of Queensland, in Brisbane, and now of the University of Bristol, in the United Kingdom. The senior author on the paper was Joseph Powell, also then of Queensland but now at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, in Darlinghurst, Australia. The paper has been cited 114 times, per Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science.
According to the abstract of the article:
Continue reading Authors — except one — retract 2014 Nature paper on genetics
A pair of authors have lost a 2020 paper claiming to link children’s vaccines to health and behavior problems after the journal concluded the data didn’t support the conclusions of the study.
The authors of the paper, “Relative Incidence of Office Visits and Cumulative Rates of Billed Diagnoses along the Axis of Vaccination,” were James Lyons-Weiler, the president and CEO of the Institute for Pure and Applied Knowledge, in Pittsburgh, and Paul Thomas, a pediatrician in Portland, Ore.
The pair have published at least one other paper on vaccines, in the International Journal of Vaccine Theory, Practice, and Research, a periodical that seems dedicated to the proposition that immunizations, and not the diseases they prevent, are a scourge. (Check out the journal’s special edition on Covid-19, for example.)
Continue reading Authors blame a “ghoul” for retraction of paper claiming vaccines lead to health and behavioral issues
Less than a month after the withdrawal of a widely touted preprint claiming that ivermectin could treat COVID-19, the authors of a meta-analysis that relied heavily on the preprint say they will retract their paper.
According to an expression of concern posted yesterday and announced by Paul Sax, the editor of the journal that published the paper:
Continue reading Ivermectin meta-analysis to be retracted, revised, say authors
More than three and a half years after being alerted to concerns about the data in a 2015 article, an obstetrics journal has finally retracted the paper, citing a lack of ethics approval for the work. Meanwhile, the co-author of a meta-analysis that relies heavily on the paper has suggested that some critics of the underlying work risk legal action for their efforts.
The study, “Vaginal progesterone for prevention of preterm labor in asymptomatic twin pregnancies with sonographic short cervix: a randomized clinical trial of efficacy and safety,” appeared in Archives of Gynecology and Obstetrics (AGO) and was conducted by Waleed El-refaie, Mohamed S. Abdelhafez and Ahmed Badawy, of the University of Mansoura in Egypt. The article has been cited 29 times, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science.
As we reported last October, data sleuths have accused Badawy and some of his colleagues at Mansoura of having fabricated data and other misconduct in some 250 clinical trials — charges which were (and may still be) apparently convincing enough to warrant a university inquiry.
Continue reading Critics face legal threats as journal takes more than three years to act
A tourism researcher in Japan has been suspended and demoted after university officials found that they had committed plagiarism in at least three papers in school publications.
In an August 4 statement, Atomi Gakuen Women’s University said Masami Murakami, formerly an associate professor, had been suspended from July 15 to September 14, and would now hold the rank of “full-time lecturer” at the school.
According to the statement, signed by university president Kiyoshi Kasahara, the punishment was “Based on the recognition of specific fraudulent activity (plagiarism) in the written paper.”
Continue reading Researcher in Japan suspended, demoted for plagiarism
Before we present this week’s Weekend Reads, a question: Do you enjoy our weekly roundup? If so, we could really use your help. Would you consider a tax-deductible donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance.
The week at Retraction Watch featured:
Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 147.
Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):
Continue reading Weekend reads: The ethics committee member who sold grades for cash; how to spot misconduct in clinical trials; biotech cited allegedly altered data in grant application
A journal has issued expressions of concern for three papers from 2014 and 2015 by a group at Stony Brook University in New York whose work has come under scrutiny on PubPeer for suspect images.
The articles, which appeared in the Journal of Neuroscience, were written by Adan Aguirre, a pharmacological scientist at Stony Brook, and his colleagues. Several other papers by Aguirre’s group — in various iterations of co-authors — have been flagged on PubPeer over the years.
The articles, “TACE/ADAM17 is Essential for Oligodendrocyte Development and CNS Myelination,” “TGFβ Signaling Regulates the Timing of CNS Myelination by Modulating Oligodendrocyte Progenitor Cell Cycle Exit through SMAD3/4/FoxO1/Sp1,” and “Oligodendrocyte Regeneration and CNS Remyelination Require TACE/ADAM17,” carry similar notices about the reliability of data in select figures, and note that the journal:
Continue reading Neuroscientist’s work earns three expressions of concern
Nine months after Retraction Watch notified a pair of journals about fraudulent letters they’d published by a researcher in Singapore, the publications are now being retracted.
As we reported last October following earlier news reports, Shunjie Chua, fabricated the names and affiliations of co-authors in at least four articles, two of which were being retracted. At the time, we found two letters to the editor by Chua and his “colleagues” and brought them to the attention of the journals in which those articles had appeared. Editors told us they had been unaware of the fabrications.
Late last month, one of the journals, Obstetrics & Gynecology, issued the following retraction notice:
Continue reading Researcher who faked co-authors earns two more retractions, publication ban following Retraction Watch coverage
Should a journal retract a paper when they learn that one of its authors has earned a year-long prison sentence for downloading child pornography?
For Brill’s Journal of Afroasiatic Languages and Linguistics the answer was no. And experts in publication ethics say that was the right call.
The researcher in question is Jan Joosten, who held the prestigious Regius professorship of Hebrew at the University of Oxford, was convicted of downloading 28,000 child abuse images and videos and placed on the register for sex offenders in France, according to the Guardian.
Continue reading Should journals retract when an author is sent to prison for a crime unrelated to their work?