Laurence Klotz, a prominent urologist at the University of Toronto who studies the prostate specific antigen (PSA), has corrected a paper after reusing his own words from an earlier review. Here’s the correction, from the Journal of Clinical Oncology (JCO):
A pair of authors have retracted a paper in Nutrition Reviews after it became clear that parts were plagiarized from work by a nutritionist who had died in an accident just weeks after writing the material. The retraction reads in full:
The British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology has issued an “expression of concern” for a 2003 review article, based on a previous lecture, with close echoes to a paper that had appeared in one of The Lancet titles. Here’s the notice for the article, by Peter Winstanley, dean of the Warwick Medical School in the United … Continue reading Pharmacology journal expresses concern over “similar, but updated” review
Family Practice has retracted a 2009 review article on diabetes whose author had published a similar — in spots identical — paper two years earlier in another journal. We think the notice is nine-tenths solid, but there’s a part at the end that raises an important question about how much, or little, editors should do … Continue reading Family Practice affair: Diabetes paper pulled for redundancy, which journal calls “honest error”
Spring is a time of rebirth and renewal — and, if you are Yoshitaka Fujii, retraction. We have seen retraction notices in two journals concerning papers by Fujii, the Japanese anesthesiologist who, according to an international group of editors, may ultimately lose some 190 publications to research fraud. Otoloaryngology — Head and Neck Surgery last … Continue reading Fujii retractions mount
The June 2012 issue of Current Opinion in Critical Care has a retraction that might have been a rather mundane case of plagiarism but for the remarkably intertwined relationships of the authors of the publications involved. Here’s the notice, which doesn’t attempt to broach the conflicts of interest (we can hardly blame them, as you’ll see):
Current Opinion in Gastroenterology is a bimonthly journal “offering a unique and wide ranging perspective on the key developments in the field” that “features hand-picked review articles from our team of expert editors.” Apparently, those hands picked what amounted to the same “unique” article twice. The journal is retracting a 2004 paper, “Enteral feeding,” by … Continue reading Gastro journal retracts duplicate review, but what really happened?
In December, we reported on the retraction of a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on a potential treatment for breast cancer. We later found out that the retracted research was part of the basis of a company that had an initial public offering a few weeks later. How the company … Continue reading Update: After unexplained delay, Cell Cycle retracts paper related to work that formed the basis of anti-cancer company
It’s an unusual move: Pediatric Allergy and Immunology has switched out the cover image in the online versions of its March issue, after realizing that likening allergies to a tsunami while Japan is struggling with the devastating effects of a real-life disaster could be “open to misinterpretation.” From an editor’s note:
Last week, we noted a Nature editorial in which the journal came clean about its higher-than-average number of retractions this year — four. What we missed was the fact that the fourth retraction of the year also appeared in last week’s issue. The retraction, of a paper called “The large-conductance Ca2+-activated K+ channel is essential … Continue reading Previously questioned Nature paper on innate immunity retracted