‘The notices are utterly unhelpful’: A look at how journals have handled allegations about hundreds of papers

Andrew Grey

Retraction Watch readers may recall the names Jun Iwamoto and Yoshihiro Sato, who now sit in positions 3 and 4 of our leaderboard of retractions, Sato with more than 100. Readers may also recall the names Andrew Grey, Alison Avenell and Mark Bolland, whose sleuthing was responsible for those retractions. In a recent paper in in Accountability in Research, the trio looked at the timeliness and content of the notices journals attached to those papers. We asked them some questions about their findings.

Retraction Watch (RW): Your paper focuses on the work of Yoshihiro Sato and Jun Iwamoto. Tell us a bit about this case.

Continue reading ‘The notices are utterly unhelpful’: A look at how journals have handled allegations about hundreds of papers

Paper likening human sperm to “playful otters” retracted

via Science Advances

Everybody out of the pool. 

The authors of a 2020 paper in Science Advances on how human sperm propel themselves in a corkscrew fashion like “playful otters” have retracted their article after concluding that their analysis didn’t support their conclusions. 

The article, by Hermes Gadêlha, of the University of Bristol, in England, and several colleagues in Mexico, spawned significant coverage in the lay and science press — including this segment on NPR’s Science Friday and an article in Science (the work behind it was the subject of this YouTube video titled “The great sperm race”).

At the heart of the paper, “Human sperm uses asymmetric and anisotropic flagellar controls to regulate swimming symmetry and cell steering,” was the use of a technology called high-speed 3D microscopy to analyze sperm in motion. Per the abstract: 

Continue reading Paper likening human sperm to “playful otters” retracted

Researcher loses medical degree for using paper mill to write his dissertation

via Pixy

A university in China has revoked the medical degree of a researcher found guilty of having produced his dissertation with the help of a prodigious paper mill. 

As Elisabeth Bik noted last year in a post on PubPeer, the thesis by Bin Chen, a lung specialist at Soochow University, was one of 121 articles produced by the paper mill that:

Continue reading Researcher loses medical degree for using paper mill to write his dissertation

How can universities and journals work together better on misconduct allegations?

Elizabeth Wager

Retractions, expressions of concern, and corrections often arise from reader critiques sent by readers, whether those readers are others in the field, sleuths, or other interested parties. In many of those cases, journals seek the input of authors’ employers, often universities. In a recent paper in Research Integrity and Peer Review, longtime scientific publishing consultant Elizabeth Wager and Lancet executive editor Sabine Kleinert, writing on behalf of the Cooperation & Liaison between Universities & Editors (CLUE) group, offer recommendations on best practice for these interactions. Here, they respond to several questions about the paper.

Retraction Watch (RW): Many would say that journals can take far too long to act on retractions and other signaling to readers about problematic papers. Journals (as well as universities) often point to the need for due process. So what would a “prompt” response look like, as recommended by the paper?

Continue reading How can universities and journals work together better on misconduct allegations?

‘Preprints are works in progress’: The tale of a disappearing COVID-19 paper

When a Twitter user tipped us off last week to the mysterious disappearance of a preprint of a paper on a potential new therapy to treat Covid-19, we were curious. Was it a hidden retraction, or something else? 

The article, titled “Effectiveness of ZYESAMI™ (Aviptadil) in Accelerating Recovery and Shortening Hospitalization in Critically-Ill Patients with COVID-19 Respiratory Failure: Interim Report from a Phase 2B/3 Multicenter Trial,” had popped up on SSRN on April 1. 

The trial was funded by NeuroRX, the maker of Zyesami, which trumpeted the results in a series of press releases dating back to February 2021. NeuroRX has been partnering with Relief Therapeutics on the development of the drug, but that marriage seems to be rather rocky. 

Guillaume Cabanac, a computer scientist in France, tweeted that by May 10 the paper had vanished with only a trace of meta-data. As another Twitter user noted, however, the article had reappeared on the preprint server with a different title. (We see the post date on SSRN as May 11.)

We took a look at the two articles and found some interesting differences. 

Continue reading ‘Preprints are works in progress’: The tale of a disappearing COVID-19 paper

Weekend reads: Government interference in research; ‘mega’ reviewers; tobacco funding draws scrutiny

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 125.

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: Government interference in research; ‘mega’ reviewers; tobacco funding draws scrutiny

Drug company withdraws court motion requesting retraction of papers critical of its painkiller

A drug maker has blinked in a lawsuit against the leading anesthesiology society in the United States, along with several anesthesiology researchers, who it claims libeled the company in a series of articles and other materials critical of its main product. 

As we reported last month, Pacira Biosciences, which makes the local anesthetic agent Exparel, field the suit in federal court in April, alleging that the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA), the editor of its flagship journal, Anesthesiology, and others, were unfairly targeting the drug.

The company asked the court for a preliminary injunction to retract two papers and an editorial about Exparel that Anesthesiology published in February. But on May 7,  Pacira withdrew the motion, about a week after the ASA filed its own motion calling for a quick hearing on the merits of the company’s motion. 

According to an unusually forceful statement (for a medical society) from the ASA: 

Continue reading Drug company withdraws court motion requesting retraction of papers critical of its painkiller

“Yep, pretty slow”: Nutrition researchers lose six papers

Zatollah Asemi

Six months after we reported that journals had slapped expressions of concern on more than three dozen papers by a group of nutrition researchers in Iran, the retractions have started to trickle in. 

But clock started nearly two years ago, after data sleuths presented journals with questions about the findings in roughly 170 papers by the authors. So far we’ve seen only six retractions, from two journals, of the suspect papers. As one of the sleuths said, “yep, pretty slow.”

Central to the case is Zatollah Asemi, of the Department of Nutrition at Kashan University of Medical Sciences. As we wrote last November: 

Continue reading “Yep, pretty slow”: Nutrition researchers lose six papers

“We didn’t want to hurt them. We are polite”: When a retraction notice pulls punches

via Flickr

A group of anesthesiology researchers in China have lost their 2020 paper on nerve blocks during lung surgery after finding that the work contained “too many” errors to stand. But after hearing from the top editor of the journal, it’s pretty clear “too many errors” was a euphemism for even worse problems.

The article, “Opioid-sparing effect of modified intercostal nerve block during single-port thoracoscopic lobectomy: A randomised controlled trial,” came from a team at Anhui Medical University. The senior author was  Guang-hong Xu. The paper appeared online in early December in the European Journal of Anaesthesiology. 

At which point it caught the attention of a reader in Australia, who emailed the journal to  point out fishiness in the data. 

Charles Marc Samama, the editor-in-chief of the EJA, told us:

Continue reading “We didn’t want to hurt them. We are polite”: When a retraction notice pulls punches

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