Retraction Watch

Highly cited cancer immunologist “seriously breached” research conduct code: Australia institute

A cancer immunologist who as of 2017 was “the most highly cited immunologist in Australia” has “seriously breached Codes relating to responsible research conduct,” according to his former employer.

QIMR Berghofer in Brisbane “has commissioned an independent external investigation after a number of complaints relating to the research conduct of a former employee Professor Mark Smyth,” the institute said in a statement.

The external investigation, led by a retired appeals court judge, Robert Gotterson, followed a preliminary investigation, according to QIMR Berghofer, which said it “has referred the findings to the Crime and Corruption Commission in accordance with its legislative obligations.” The institute has “also organised for an independent review into a broad range of issues arising out of the Panel Report” that will be conducted by former federal court judge Bruce Lander.

Journal mulls expression of concern for Cassava Sciences paper

A journal is considering issuing an expression of concern for a 2005 paper by authors tied to a company that’s now under investigation for fraud, Retraction Watch has learned.

[See an update on this post (bottom).]

The article, “Ultra-low-dose naloxone suppresses opioid tolerance, dependence and associated changes in mu opioid receptor–G protein coupling and Gβγ signaling,” was written by a group linked to Pain Therapeutics, Inc., which in 2019 changed its name to Cassava Sciences.

Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the National Institutes of Health were investigating claims that the company manipulated data for simulfilam, its experimental drug for Alzheimer’s disease.

As we reported in August, a law firm submitted a “citizen’s petition” to the FDA citing:

Author who squats on domains to fake affiliations and added Wolf Blitzer as a co-author up to a dozen retractions

A putative brain surgeon with a penchant for fabricating his affiliations and co-authors — including Wolf Blitzer of CNN — has lost several more papers to retraction.

As we reported in August, Michael George Zaki Ghali, or someone using that name:

bought two fake web domains for the Karolinska Institutet [KI] to make it look as though he was affiliated with the world-famous medical center and published seven dozen papers in peer reviewed journals owned by Elsevier, IMR Press, Taylor & Francis and Wiley. … Ghali has twice been ordered to turn over domain names linked to Karolinska the real institute, once in June 2020 and again in November 2020.

At the time, we were aware of seven retractions for Ghali, including the one co-bylined with Blitzer. That number has now grown to at least 12, by our count.

Weekend reads: An error in a PLOS journal leads to angry calls to Fauci; Jonathan Pruitt placed on leave; Cassava Sciences under SEC investigation

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:

Publisher retracts nearly 80 articles over three days
PNAS retracts paper that contributed to lung cancer trial
‘I have zero complaints about the process’: Post-publication analysis earns perception paper a flag
Co-author of paper claiming COVID-19 vaccines linked to miscarriage says he’s retracting it
Elsevier makes “sand, sun, sea and sex with strangers” paper disappear following criticism. And “Sand, sun, sea and sex with strangers” paper did not need human subjects research protection approval, says author
Stanford prof fights efforts to make him pay at least $75,000 in legal fees after dropping defamation suit

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 190. There are now more than 31,000 retractions in our database — which now powers retraction alerts in EndNote, Papers, and Zotero. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately?

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

“Sand, sun, sea and sex with strangers” paper did not need human subjects research protection approval, says author

Sand dunes in the Canary Islands, image by Klaus Stebani from Pixabay

A now-temporarily retracted paper about how gay men seeking sex on the beach is damaging dunes that was criticized for its language — and for not mentioning any ethical approval — did not need such approval, one of the study’s authors said.

The study was carried out in 2018. But the Human Research Ethics Commitee at ULPGC did not weigh in on the work until September 2021. Luis Hernández-Calvento, the corresponding author of the paper and a professor at Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (ULPGC), explained to Retraction Watch:

Stanford prof fights efforts to make him pay at least $75,000 in legal fees after dropping defamation suit

A Stanford University professor who tried to sue a critic and the journal that published an unfavorable view of his work is opposing a judge’s order that he pay $75,000 in legal fees generated in the case.

In 2017, Mark Jacobson, an engineer who studies energy at the California institution, sued Christopher Clack and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) after the journal published an article which cast doubt on some of the conclusions in a 2015 paper Jacobson had written in PNAS. The amount of the defamation claim? $10 million from each of the two parties, plus punitive damages and “any and all relief.”

Jacobson withdrew his lawsuit, which also demanded a retraction, in 2018, at which point Clack and the journal fired back. They filed their own suit grounded in the anti-SLAPP — short for “Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation” — statute, in which they asked for Jacobson to pay their legal fees.

Elsevier makes “sand, sun, sea and sex with strangers” paper disappear following criticism

An Elsevier journal has disappeared a paper claiming that gay men seeking sex on the beach is damaging dunes, after critics lambasted the work as terrible science and an “egregious” attack on gays and bisexuals.

The article, “Sand, Sun, Sea and Sex with Strangers, the “five S’s”. Characterizing “cruising” activity and its environmental impacts on a protected coastal dunefield [WebArchive link],” argues that the littoral lovemaking habits of some particularly enthusiastic mariners might be damaging key ecological species:

Co-author of paper claiming COVID-19 vaccines linked to miscarriage says he’s retracting it

A pair of researchers in New Zealand have asked for the retraction of a controversial article on the risk of miscarriage in pregnant women who receive a vaccination against Covid-19, according to one of the co-authors.

Simon Thornley, of the University of Auckland — and an outspoken critic of New Zealand’s efforts to contain the Covid-19 pandemic — and Aleisha Brock, of Whanganui, N.Z., published a reanalysis of a study in which they claimed to have found that as many as 91% of pregnant women miscarry after receiving a Covid jab.

But after an onslaught of criticism — including a scathing email from an official at the University of Auckland — Thornley tells us he and Brock have decided to retract their paper, although he declined to tell us why.

‘I have zero complaints about the process’: Post-publication analysis earns perception paper a flag

A journal has issued an expression of concern for a nine year old paper, which purported to find that people associate morality with brightness (that’s light, not smarts), after a data sleuth found problems with the results.

The article, “Is It Light or Dark? Recalling Moral Behavior Changes Perception of Brightness,” appeared in Psychological Science in 2012 and was written by a group of marketing researchers at the Winston-Salem State University, in North Carolina, the University of Kansas and the University of Arizona.

Aaron Charlton, a marketing researcher at Illinois State University who’s involved in replication efforts in his field, told us that he decided to take a closer look at the data in the paper, which he noted had been the subject of two previous attempts to replicate the key findings, after seeing this post on PubPeer.

PNAS retracts paper that contributed to lung cancer trial

National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center

A paper that was the subject of a four-page correction in 2018, and which helped inform a now-halted clinical trial of a drug for lung cancer, has been retracted following an institutional investigation concluded that one of the researchers had falsified the data in that article and at least four others.

And we have learned that Springer Nature should be acting on a different article by the researcher shortly, and has just begun an investigation of yet another.

The PNAS article, which appeared in 2015, was written by Takashi Nojiri, formerly of Osaka University and the National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center Research Institute, in Japan. As we reported in June, an August 2020 report from National University Corporation Osaka University and National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center Hospital concluded that Nojiri committed:

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