When a 2008 paper proposed that athletes be kept out of play for four weeks following a concussion, three doctors wrote in to say that the recommendations were “irrelevant and ill advised.” One thing the trio failed to disclose, however, was their own financial ties to the National Football League. With the release of the … Continue reading Critics of 2008 concussion study failed to note NFL ties
After a request for the original data was denied, PLOS ONE editors have flagged a 2012 sub analysis of a controversial clinical trial on chronic fatigue syndrome with an editor’s note. The editor’s note — which reads like an Expression of Concern — reiterates the journal’s policy that authors make data and materials available upon request, and notes that … Continue reading PLOS ONE issues editor’s note over controversial chronic fatigue syndrome research
An investigation at the University of New South Wales in Australia has determined that a long-accused cancer researcher did not commit misconduct. The investigation did find instances when Levon Khachigian breached the code of conduct, but
Authors have retracted papers from Cell Metabolism and the Journal of Biological Chemistry after an investigation in Singapore found issues, including falsified data. The investigation is ongoing, and two additional retractions, along with two corrections, are on the horizon. The investigation looked into papers by first authors Sudarsanareddy Lokireddy, now a postdoc at Harvard, and Sandhya Sriram, a postdoc at the … Continue reading Singapore investigation leads to two retractions, two more on the way
This week at Retraction Watch featured a look at the huge problem of misidentified cell lines, a check-in with a company that retracted a paper as it was about to go public, and Diederik Stapel’s 58th retraction. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
In Latin America, retractions for plagiarism and other issues have increased markedly — which may be a positive sign that editors and authors are paying closer attention to publishing ethics, according to a small study published in Science and Engineering Ethics. The authors examined two major Latin American/Caribbean databases, which mostly include journals from Brazil, and have been indexing … Continue reading Is an increase in retractions good news? Maybe, suggests new study
A group of astrophysicists has notched a pair of corrections for papers on galaxy clusters, thanks to an error that affected several figures in the papers, but not the overall conclusions. The errors came in the catalog of “mock” galaxies that first author Fabio Zandanel, a postdoc at the University of Amsterdam, created to model features that are found in … Continue reading Astrophysicists issue two detailed corrections
What if we told you that approximately 1 in 6 researchers working with human cells are using the wrong cell line? In other words, they believe they are studying the effects of a drug on breast cancer cells, for instance, but what they really have are cells from the bladder. That is the unfortunate reality … Continue reading Hundreds of researchers are using the wrong cells. That’s a major problem.
An article about the use of vaccines against pertussis — also known as whooping cough — didn’t include the fact that the author has received grants and consultancy fees from three pharmaceutical companies that help make or sell the vaccines. The correction to “Pertussis in young infants: a severe vaccine-preventable disease,” published in Autopsy and Case Reports just a few … Continue reading Publisher error removes industry conflicts in vaccine paper
Olivier Voinnet, a well-known plant scientist at the ETH in Zurich, has notched his 7th retraction for a highly cited paper. The 2003 paper was pulled when “additional image manipulations” came to light after The Plant Journal issued a correction earlier this year. The retraction follows an investigation into — and then retraction of — several other papers co-authored by Voinnet. The … Continue reading Voinnet retracts highly cited paper, bringing his total to 7