As Retraction Watch readers know, we cover Elsevier’s journals frequently, including a story just last week about their peer review system being hacked. And they’ve written about us, too. So we’re pleased to present a guest post by Elsevier’s Linda Lavelle, General Counsel-North America, about the publisher’s take on plagiarism and other unethical behavior — … Continue reading How is Elsevier promoting ethical publishing? A guest post
As we — and others — have written, retracted articles don’t necessarily creep off to some little island somewhere never to be heard from again. After all, the electronic versions of about a third of retracted papers aren’t marked as retracted. Sometimes, like Napoleon, those papers return from exile to wreak havoc: They get cited … Continue reading After retracted study’s cited, editors ask, “time to add scientific integrity to the downside of print on paper?”
A group of cardiology researchers formerly of the University of Cologne has retracted two papers, after investigations into allegations of misconduct led to an admission of guilt by one of the lab’s junior members. Here’s the first retraction, for “Connexin 43 acts as a cytoprotective mediator of signal transduction by stimulating mitochondrial KATP channels in … Continue reading Two patch-clamping retractions in PNAS and the JCI after first author admits image manipulation
Amid criticisms this week that his former university didn’t do all it should have to investigate his work, another paper by Dirk Smeesters has been retracted. Here’s the notice for “The effect of color (red versus blue) on assimilation versus contrast in prime-to-behavior effects,” which appeared in The Journal of Experimental Social Psychology:
Dutch investigators have released their final report into the case of Diederik Stapel, the social scientist and erstwhile faculty member at Tilburg University who fabricated data in 55 articles and book chapters. So far, 31 of Stapel’s published papers have been retracted — three others have expressions of concern — although more might follow. In … Continue reading Going Dutch: Stapel inquiry eyes credulous colleagues, institution, prompts national soul search
Has the Annals of Thoracic Surgery had a change of heart? Evidently the publication that told us nearly two years ago, in effect, that the reasons for retractions in its pages were “none of [our] damn business” has decided that information is worth sharing after all. The ATS has retracted a paper it published in … Continue reading “Misconduct” leads to retraction from Italian “super surgeon” under house arrest
Diederik Stapel has three more retractions, making 31. The most recent three we’ve found all appear in the European Journal of Social Psychology:
Two biotechnology researchers at the National Autonomous University of Mexico have been disciplined for manipulating images in 11 papers. La Jornada, one of Mexico City’s largest newspapers, reports that Alejandra Bravo and Mario Soberon, a wife and husband team who study the Bacillus thuringiensis (BT) bacteria toxins used in GMO crops to fight pests,were found guilty … Continue reading University disciplines researchers who study toxins used in GMO crops; at least seven corrections to follow
The work of Sam W. Lee, a cancer biologist at Harvard and Massachusetts General Hospital, has come under fire at Science Fraud lately over concerns about the possible reuse of images in his group’s published studies. Turns out there’s some there, there after all. The journal Current Biology has issued a pretty thorny correction for … Continue reading Image correction in Current Biology for Harvard’s Sam Lee
The retraction count continues to grow for a group of Iranian scientists who appear to have published similar work four times. The group was forced to retract a Journal of Gastrointestinal and Liver Diseases paper in March. That retraction came alongside one in the New Zealand Journal of Medical Laboratory Science, whose editor had tipped … Continue reading Group’s duplication retractions span the globe, from New Zealand to Romania to Croatia