Researchers at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences have retracted a 2014 article after a review unearthed unresolved problems with the study’s control material. The retracted paper, “Effect of Temperature and Storage Time on Sorbitol Dehydrogenase Activity in Sprague-Dawley Rat Serum and Plasma,” looked to test the durability and stability of sorbitol dehydrogenase, an … Continue reading “Values were outside expected ranges”: Toxicology paper spiked after audit
A 2002 paper in the Journal of Biological Chemistry on how lung cancer cells resist death has been retracted for duplicating figures from a 2001 paper. The retracted paper, “Fibroblast growth factor-2 induces translational regulation of Bcl-XL and Bcl-2 via a MEK-dependent pathway: correlation with resistance to etoposide-induced apoptosis,” shares the first and last authors … Continue reading JBC cancer paper felled by duplication is one author’s second retraction this month
This week at Retraction Watch saw us report on thousands of retractions from IEEE, which will have a serious effect on retraction record-keeping, a bizarre case of author impersonation, and a look at dentistry in outer space. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
If you happen to pick up this month’s issue of Economic Modelling, there’s a little surprise on page 307—blank pages. Publisher Elsevier has retracted a paper from that space because it “inadvertently published” the paper in the journal. In fact, Elsevier meant to include the paper in the pages of its other journal, Energy Economics. … Continue reading A tale of two journals: Elsevier retracts paper after publishing it in the wrong journal
Northwestern University has reposted a publication from the Medical Humanities & Bioethics Program at the Feinberg School of Medicine that included a controversial essay about oral sex, after it was pulled for more than a year. The essay was included in an issue guest edited by faculty member Alice Dreger—who penned a post for us in March about the ways … Continue reading Northwestern pulls bioethics publication with oral sex essay, reposts one year later
A pair of animal nutrition researchers in India have now had a second paper on the nutritional value of a fungal treatment for wheat straw retracted, and one of the authors is very unhappy about it. M.S. Mahesh of the National Dairy Research Institute at Deemed University claims a co-author issued “abusive letters” to an editor of the journal where the first … Continue reading Food fight: Animal nutrition author disputes two retractions
Last month, the community was shaken when a major study on gay marriage in Science was retracted following questions on its funding, data, and methodology. The senior author, Donald Green, made it clear he was not privy to many details of the paper — which raised some questions for C. K. Gunsalus, director of the National … Continue reading “If you think it’s rude to ask to look at your co-authors’ data, you’re not doing science”: Guest post
Who has the most retractions? Here’s our unofficial list (see notes on methodology), which we’ll update as more information comes to light: Joachim Boldt (220) See also: Editors-in-chief statement, our coverage Yoshitaka Fujii (172) See also: Final report of investigating committee, our reporting, additional coverage Hironobu Ueshima (124) See also: our coverage Yoshihiro Sato (122) … Continue reading The Retraction Watch Leaderboard
Here at Retraction Watch, we are reminded every day that everybody (including us) makes mistakes — what matters is, how you handle yourself when it happens. That’s why we created a “doing the right thing” category, to flag incidents where scientists have owned up to their errors and taken steps to correct them. We’re not suggesting … Continue reading The consequences of retraction: Do scientists forgive and forget?
The American Journal of Pathology has posted a note of concern to a 2002 paper about retinoblastoma after discovering two sets of figures “share significant overlap… suggesting that they did not originate from different specimens.” The overlap was “simultaneously brought to the attention of the Editors” by both the corresponding author and a “concerned reader.” The … Continue reading “Significant overlap” between figures spurs note of concern for 13-year-old retinoblastoma paper