Who owns your thesis data? We do, says one university, prompting retraction

The University of Pavia, Yamada via Flickr

Here’s a story that’s likely to strike a sour chord with graduate students. 

A researcher in Italy has lost his 2020 paper, based on work he conducted for his doctoral thesis, after the university claimed that he didn’t have the right to publish the data. 

The paper, “Musical practice and BDNF plasma levels as a potential marker of synaptic plasticity: an instrument of rehabilitative processes,” was written by Alessandro Minutillo, now of the Department of Pathophysiology and Transplantation at the University of Milan and appeared in Neurological Sciences. His two co-authors included Massimo Carlo Mauri, a prominent psychiatrist at the Department of Neurosciences and Mental Health, Fondazione IRCCS Ca’ Granda Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico, also in Milan. 

The study, which Minutillo conducted while a medical student at the University of Pavia, was based on data from 48 men and women, of whom 21 were musicians and 27 were non-musicians. (In case you’re wondering: “To be defined as a “musician,” the practice of any musical instrument or voice was required for at least 3 h a week. This practice had to be stable and continued for at least 5 years and the subject had to have been achieved a musical degree.”)

Per the authors: 

Continue reading Who owns your thesis data? We do, says one university, prompting retraction

Clinical trial paper that made anemia drug look safer than it is will be retracted

via Kidney International Reports

A study that a pharmaceutical company admitted last month included manipulated data will be retracted, Retraction Watch has learned.

The paper, “Pooled Analysis of Roxadustat for Anemia in Patients With Kidney Failure Incident to Dialysis,” was published in Kidney International Reports in December 2020. The study analyzed data from a clinical trial for roxadustat, a drug intended to help anemic patients make more red blood cells. The medicine was tested in more than 1,500 patients with kidney failure that had been on dialysis for less than four months.

The paper compared roxadustat to a standard treatment, epoetin alfa. Epoetin alfa is not given to anemic patients who have kidney disease and are not dependent on dialysis, according to reporting in April by FiercePharma, because it can increase the risk of a cardiovascular event, including heart attacks.

In the study, roxadustat was as effective as epoetin alfa for these patients, but carried a 30 percent lower risk for death, heart attacks or strokes.

Then, on April 6th, Fibrogen announced, according to FiercePharma, that researchers had

Continue reading Clinical trial paper that made anemia drug look safer than it is will be retracted

Authors yank ketamine study, hoping it will go away without attention, and journal obliges

The authors of a paper on the antidepressant effects of ketamine have retracted their article for a lack of reproducibility — but readers have no way of knowing that because the journal declined to say as much in the retraction notice.

If that sounds like a tale from the pages of the Journal of Neuroscience, that’s because it is. We’ve taken the journal to task over the years for its pitiful retraction notices, which seem to take the default position of saying absolutely nothing — even in cases where readers have good cause to be skeptical of the findings. 

This time, however, the top editor told us that the notice should have said more but it “slipped through the cracks.”

Continue reading Authors yank ketamine study, hoping it will go away without attention, and journal obliges

Weekend reads: Allegations about exploitative research; COVID-19 retractions; how to get cited more often

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 124.

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: Allegations about exploitative research; COVID-19 retractions; how to get cited more often

Years after faked peer review concerns surfaced, journals are still falling for it

A group of authors has lost a pair of papers in a computing journal for monkeying with the peer review process. 

The first author on both articles was Mohamed Abdel-Basset of the Department of Operations Research in the Faculty of Computers and Informatics at Zagazig University, in Sharqiya. Mai Mohamad, also of Zagazig, is the only co-author to appear on both papers, which were published in Future Generation Computer Systems, an Elsevier journal. 

As we reported previously, the journal has some experience with publishing highjinx.    

The latest cases involve the 2019 article titled “A novel and powerful framework based on neutrosophic sets to aid patients with cancer.” According to the retraction notice: 

Continue reading Years after faked peer review concerns surfaced, journals are still falling for it

Rejection overruled, retraction ensues when annoyed reviewer does deep dive into data

Kim Rossmo

As a prominent criminologist, Kim Rossmo often gets asked to review manuscripts. So it was that he found himself reviewing a meta-analysis by a pair of Dutch researchers — Wim Bernasco and Remco van Dijke, of the Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement, in Amsterdam — looking at a phenomenon called the buffer zone hypothesis. In this framework, criminals are thought to avoid committing offenses near their own homes. 

The paper, for Crime Science, analyzed 33 studies, of which, according to the authors, 11 confirmed the hypothesis and 22 rejected it. 

Rossmo, who holds the University Chair in Criminology and directs the Center for Geospatial Intelligence and Investigation in the School of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Texas State University in San Marcos, told us:

Continue reading Rejection overruled, retraction ensues when annoyed reviewer does deep dive into data

Paper on ‘energy medicine’ retracted after reader complaints

Christina Ross

An integrative health journal has retracted a 2019 paper two months after issuing an expression of concern about the article distancing itself from the work. 

The paper, which appeared in Global Advances in Health and Medicine, was a review of “energy medicine” by Christina Ross, of Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C. 

As we reported in March, Ross told us that a reader in England complained to the journal for her suggestion in the paper: 

Continue reading Paper on ‘energy medicine’ retracted after reader complaints

Prominent Chinese scientist failed to disclose company ties in COVID-19 clinical trial paper

Nanshan Zhong, by 东方(美國之音記者) via Wikimedia

One of China’s leading scientists in the fight against COVID-19 failed to disclose ties to a pharmaceutical company in a paper stemming from a clinical trial, Retraction Watch has learned. A co-author on the paper is married to the daughter of that pharmaceutical company’s founder, who herself sits on the firm’s board of directors. 

Nanshan Zhong first rose to prominence during the 2003 SARS outbreak for developing “a controversial steroid treatment that cured many SARS patients but left some with debilitating bone issues,” according to NPR. In 2020, TIME named him to the magazine’s list of the world’s 100 most influential people. He was appointed to lead China’s National Health Commission investigation into COVID-19 early last year, and in February 2020 Harvard announced that Zhong would share in a $115 million effort with university scientists to develop therapies for COVID-19.

Last May, Zhong published results from a clinical trial that tested whether a traditional Chinese medicine could be used to treat COVID-19 patients. That paper, titled “Efficacy and safety of Lianhuaqingwen capsules, a repurposed Chinese herb, in patients with coronavirus disease 2019: A multicenter, prospective, randomized controlled trial,” was published in Phytomedicine. It has been cited 67 times, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science, and has two corresponding authors: Zhong, of the Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Health, and Zhen-hua Jia of Hebei Yiling Hospital, in China. 

Continue reading Prominent Chinese scientist failed to disclose company ties in COVID-19 clinical trial paper

Ecologist who lost thesis awards earns expressions of concern after laptop stolen

Readers may roll their eyes at the various excuses authors use — including flooded labs and “my laptop was stolen” — when their data are unavailable for further scrutiny following questions. But here’s a case in which a stolen laptop is a real story.

On April 5, Daniel Bolnick, the editor-in-chief of The American Naturalist, posted an expression of concern for three studies published in 2018 and 2019:

This Editorial Expression of Concern serves to notify readers of The American Naturalist that the Editorial Board has identified data archiving and statistical concerns regarding three previously published papers. 

The statement continues, noting that author Denon Start — who has had two awards from his PhD rescinded, and whose employment status is unclear — “no longer has access to these data:”

Continue reading Ecologist who lost thesis awards earns expressions of concern after laptop stolen

Weekend reads: COVID-19 issue pulled; an author announces a retraction; FDA sanctions a company for not publishing results

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 122.

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: COVID-19 issue pulled; an author announces a retraction; FDA sanctions a company for not publishing results