Journal expresses concern over study of potential treatment for autism

A journal has issued an expression of concern for a 2014 paper on a study of a potential treatment for autism. 

The article, by a group in Slovakia, purported to show for the first time that the drug ubiquinol — a form of the compound  coenzyme Q₁₀ — could improve the ability of children with autism to communicate with their parents, communicate verbally, play games with other children and help with other behaviors. 

The paper was published in Oxidative Medicine and Cellular Longevity, a Hindawi journal. The first author was Anna Gvozdjáková, of Comenius University in Bratislava, and the last author was Fred Crane, a former biologist at Purdue University in Indiana. Crane, who died in 2016, is credited with being the discoverer of coenzyme Q10 in mitochondria in 1957. The 2014 article — which has been cited 29 times, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science — was among the last of his 400-plus papers to appear in print.

Per the EoC: 

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‘Deeply unfair’: First author of newly retracted paper on weight and honesty speaks out

The first author of a highly controversial — and now retracted — paper linking body weight to integrity calls the journal’s decision to pull the article “a bitter surprise” and its handling of the article after publication “deeply unfair.”

Eugenia Polizzi di Sorrentino

The article, “Dishonesty is more affected by BMI status than by short-term changes in glucose,” was published in Scientific Reports in July and retracted this week. Eugenia Polizzi di Sorrentino, of the Institute of Cognitive Science and Technologies at the National Research Center, in Rome, who along with her colleagues disagreed with the retraction, told us: 

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Springer Nature journal retracts BMI, honesty paper

More than five months after outraged readers demanded that a Springer Nature journal retract a paper linking body mass index to honesty, the publication has been pulled. 

The journal now says that a post-publication review of the article found that the data don’t support the authors’ conclusions — which is another way of saying that the pre-publication peer review missed that fact. 

Publication by Scientific Reports of the article, “Dishonesty is more affected by BMI status than by short-term changes in glucose,” last July caused consternation on social media, as readers wondered what they were reading and why the journal had agreed to publish the study, as well as on the journal’s website. 

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“Confrontation is an important element of physics progress:” Paper on black holes retracted

Amrit Srečko Šorli

A Springer Nature journal has retracted a 2019 article by a Slovenian physicist who claims that both Creationism and Big Bang theory are wrong, and that black holes are the engines driving the universe.

The paper, in Scientific Reports, was titled “Mass-energy equivalence extension onto a superfluid quantum vacuum,” and was written by Amrit Srečko Šorli. It has yet to be cited, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science, and four posts by Šorli’s institute that refer to it have been removed by Medium because the institute’s “account is under investigation or was found in violation of the Medium Rules.”

In 2010, Šorli founded the Bijective Physics Institute, whose proponents — we’re not sure how many there are beyond him and a few others named on the site — believe: 

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“The most horrific time of my career.” What do you do when you realize years of your published work is built on an error?

Nicola Smith, credit Karl Welsch, Welsch Photography

In September 2019 Nicola Smith, a molecular pharmacologist in Australia, faced a brutal decision. She’d realized that she’d made a mistake — or rather, failed to catch a mistake in her group’s research before the crippling error was published — in two academic articles which were the culmination of years of work. And she could either tell the world, or pretend it never happened.

Her students had been having trouble reproducing lab data. Once she looked into it and she figured out why, she told them, “Guys, you’re not going to believe this.” A cloning error had ensured the experiments were doomed to fail from the start.

If she came clean, she knew that at least one of the articles would most likely be retracted and she’d have to live with a lasting mark on her and her team’s record. “What can I do to minimize the impact” on her two students? Smith thought at the time.

In particular, Tony Ngo,who was first author on both papers and had recently finished a PhD in her lab, was looking forward to a future in academia. Smith was terrified of tarnishing his prospects.

What was to stop her from just keeping quiet about it?

Continue reading “The most horrific time of my career.” What do you do when you realize years of your published work is built on an error?

Weekend reads: How COVID-19 has changed publications; peer review and women; is ‘manuscript recycling’ OK?

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 74.

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: How COVID-19 has changed publications; peer review and women; is ‘manuscript recycling’ OK?

Holy cow: “The article as written contains misleading information and omits important details.”

via Flickr

An agriculture journal has put the “retraction” brand on a 2020 study about calving cattle after the editors learned that the researchers had misrepresented aspects of their work. 

“Changes in rumen fermentation, bacterial community, and predicted functional pathway in Holstein cows with and without subacute ruminal acidosis during the periparturient period,” appeared in March in the Journal of Dairy Science. The senior author of the article was Shigeru Sato, of the Graduate School of Veterinary Sciences at Iwate University in Japan. 

According to the retraction notice (which is only mentioned at the very bottom of the original article’s page, as a “linked article”): 

Continue reading Holy cow: “The article as written contains misleading information and omits important details.”

Columbia grad student faked data in study of socioeconomics and life experiences, says retraction notice

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin has retracted a 2018 paper because, according to a retraction notice, the first author changed data in a way that “resulted in incorrect and misleading results.”

The article, “Cardiovascular and self-regulatory consequences of SES-based social identity threat,” claims to show that socioeconomic status-based “social identity threat can go from ‘in the air’ to ‘under the skin’ to influence physiological and self-regulatory processes.” It has been cited twice in addition to the retraction notice, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science.

Here’s the retraction notice:

Continue reading Columbia grad student faked data in study of socioeconomics and life experiences, says retraction notice

“This retraction is one of the fastest I ever experienced after reporting a paper to a journal editor.”

Elisabeth Bik

A researcher who has had more than 40 papers questioned by scientific sleuths has lost a second to retraction.

On December 14, Elisabeth Bik reported problems in 39 papers coauthored by Hua Tang, of Tianjin Medical University in China, to the editors of the journals that had published the papers. PubPeer commenters found problems in several other papers, and Bik tallied the 45 articles in a December 18 post.

In May, Tang lost a paper from PLOS ONE that Bik had flagged for the journal all the way back in 2015 — a delay that is not unusual for the journal, but becoming less common.

But the response this time was swift, at least for one journal. DNA and Cell Biology, a Mary Ann Liebert title, retracted “microRNA-34a-Upregulated Retinoic Acid-Inducible Gene-I Promotes Apoptosis and Delays Cell Cycle Transition in Cervical Cancer Cells” this week. (The exact date of the retraction is unclear, as Bik notes below.)

Here’s the notice:

Continue reading “This retraction is one of the fastest I ever experienced after reporting a paper to a journal editor.”

JAMA journal retracts its first paper, on exercise and heart disease

The authors of a 2019 meta-analysis in a JAMA journal on exercise and heart disease have retracted the paper after discovering that a quarter of the studies they’d used in the analysis did not belong. 

The retraction is the first for the journal, which had published some 2,800 articles before having to pull one, Frederick P. Rivara, the editor in chief, told Retraction Watch. One in 2,800, we should note, is quite close to the 4 in 10,000 rate of retraction in the overall literature.

The study, from a group at the Universities of Manchester and Brighton, in the United Kingdom, was titled “Accelerometer- and pedometer-based physical activity interventions among adults with cardiometabolic conditions: a systematic review and meta-analysis,” and appeared in JAMA Network Open. 

The authors, led by Alexander Hodkinson, looked at 36 randomized clinical trials and found that: 

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