We have an update on the case of Yoshiyuki Hattori, the Japanese endocrinologist who has had a half-dozen papers retracted because of issues involving reused data. We’ve reported on some of those retractions, and report on three new ones here. As a trainee, Hattori spent some time in England, where he met Steven Gross, a … Continue reading More on Hattori case from co-author: Did grudge lead to scientist’s fall?
We’ve been reporting on the case of Zhiguo Wang, the Montreal Heart Institute researcher who was dismissed earlier this month for scientific misconduct. In the announcement about Wang’s dismissal, the institute said it had requested the retraction of three papers other than the two that Wang had himself retracted earlier this summer, making a total of … Continue reading Nature Medicine paper by former Montreal Heart Institute researcher Zhiguo Wang unlikely to be retracted
Scott Weber, the nursing researcher accused of manipulating references and other publishing misconduct in at least seven retracted articles, has lost his position at Walden University, Retraction Watch has learned. We noticed the other day that Weber’s name had disappeared from the Walden website and put in a call to the institution. A source there … Continue reading Publishing scandal costs nursing researcher his post at online university
Do fraudsters, like bad pitchers or poker players, have “tells”? Diederik Stapel might. Last week we reported that Stapel, an internationally recognized social psychologist from The Netherlands, had been accused of fabricating his data. An alert Retraction Watch reader has pointed us to a 1999 paper by Stapel with the impossibly ironic title: “Framed and … Continue reading Did Diederik Stapel tip his pitches in a paper about a plagiarism scandal?
The Journal of Neurochemistry will retract a paper by Jatinder Ahluwalia, the scientist who recently left his post at the University of East London following an investigation into his work. Ahluwalia was lead author of the 2003 paper, “Activation of capsaicin-sensitive primary sensory neurones induces anandamide production and release,” while earning his PhD at Imperial College … Continue reading Another retraction for Jatinder Ahluwalia, in Journal of Neurochemistry
We often hear — with data to back the statement — that top-tier journals, ranked by impact factor, retract more papers than lower-tier journals. For example, when Murat Cokol and colleagues compared journals’ retraction numbers in EMBO Reports in 2007, as Nature noted in its coverage of that study (h/t Richard van Noorden): Journals with high impact factors … Continue reading Is it time for a Retraction Index?
The news isn’t getting any better for Carsten Carlberg. Earlier this month, Carlberg received a pink slip from the University of Luxembourg in the wake of a data fraud scandal involving a former student named Tatjana Degenhardt. As we wrote last November, journals retracted two of Carlberg’s papers after Degenhardt was found to have fabricated … Continue reading After Luxembourg firing, U. Eastern Finland reportedly looking into Carlberg, too
Liz Wager, the chair of the Committee on Publication Ethics, knows something about retractions. In April, she and University College London’s Peter Williams published a paper in the Journal of Medical Ethics showing that journal editors’ approaches to retractions aren’t uniform. The pair is back with another paper, using the same dataset of retractions and published … Continue reading Why do — and don’t — journal editors retract articles?
When a group of researchers last year claimed to have found a “genetic signature” to identify people likely to live to 100, they were questioned immediately. Now they’ve retracted the controversial paper — but continue to stand behind their assertion. The paper had been the subject of an “Expression of Concern” in November. The retraction … Continue reading Sebastiani group retracts genetics of aging study from Science
Jatinder Ahluwalia, whose story Retraction Watch has been following since last fall, is no longer working at the University of East London, according to a report in today’s Times Higher Education. Ahluwalia, Retraction Watch readers may recall, came to our attention in the fall after he and his colleagues were forced to retract a paper … Continue reading Jatinder Ahluwalia out at University of East London: report