This week at Retraction Watch featured revelations about a frequent co-author of the world’s retraction record holder, and a prison term for fraud. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
It has been a tough couple of years for surgeon Paolo Macchiarini, once lauded for pioneering a groundbreaking procedure to transplant tracheas. After a series of documentaries prompted his former employer, Karolinska Institutet (KI), to reopen a misconduct investigation against him, KI has today released one verdict regarding a 2014 Nature Communications paper: guilty. KI said … Continue reading Karolinska requests retraction of 2014 Macchiarini paper
A scientist in Germany has lost two papers that were collectively cited more than 500 times, after an investigation at her former university found her guilty of scientific misconduct. The probe into Tina Wenz by the University of Cologne in Germany, her former employer, recommended that six of her papers — which have induced some chatter on … Continue reading Researchers retract two well-cited papers for misconduct
Not all retractions result from researchers’ mistakes — we have an entire category of posts known as “publisher errors,” in which publishers mistakenly post a paper, through no fault of the authors. Yet, those retractions can become a black mark on authors’ record. Our co-founder Ivan Oransky and Adam Etkin, Executive Editor at Springer Publishing Co … Continue reading Dopey dupe retractions: How publisher error hurts researchers
An economics journal has corrected a paper for the second time for failing to cite previous studies — and said in a separate note that it no longer plans to publish similar errata, with rare exceptions. In September 2015, we reported on the first erratum for “Incentives for Creativity” — a paper that analyzed ways … Continue reading We’re not “citation police:” No more errata for omitted citations, says economics journal
Every year, academics get thousands of spam emails inviting them to submit manuscripts or attend conferences — but don’t bother asking to “unsubscribe” for Christmas. Spoiler alert, for those of you planning to read the rest of this post: It doesn’t make much of a difference. That’s according to the conclusions of a study published … Continue reading Spam me once, shame on you. (Academic) spam me 3000 times…?
A lab at the University of California, Los Angeles has retracted two papers for duplicated images. These retractions — in the Journal of Immunology — represent the second and third retractions for the lab head; he lost another paper after one of his former students confessed to manipulating images. Although Eriko Suzuki admitted to her actions … Continue reading UCLA lab pulls two papers — one by author who admitted to misconduct
A journal posted an abstract online suggesting a link between vaccines and autism. After a firestorm of criticism, it removed the abstract, saying it was going to be re-reviewed. Now, the journal has decided to formally reject it. As we reported last month, Frontiers in Public Health removed the abstract after it sparked criticism on … Continue reading Journal reverses acceptance of study linking vaccines to autism
If you think something is amiss with your data, running an experiment again to figure out what’s going on is a good move. But it’s not always possible. A team of researchers in Seoul recently found themselves in a bind when they needed to check their work, but were out of a key substance: breast milk. The … Continue reading Researchers retract paper after they run out of breast milk
Drumroll please. The tally of retractions in MEDLINE — one of the world’s largest databases of scientific abstracts — for the last fiscal year has just been released, and the number is: 664. Earlier this year, we scratched our heads over the data from 2015, which showed retractions had risen dramatically, to 684. The figures for … Continue reading Retractions holding steady at more than 650 in FY2016