Weekend reads: $1.5 million payout after failure to disclose conflicts; systematic review retractions; entire class penalized for cheating

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 year-ed 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Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 40.

Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

Continue reading Weekend reads: $1.5 million payout after failure to disclose conflicts; systematic review retractions; entire class penalized for cheating

‘Misconduct on a grand and terrible scale’: Dental scientist up to 26 retractions

Jose Luis Calvo-Guirado

A dentistry researcher in Spain with a history of reusing and manipulating images has notched two more retractions, giving him 26. 

The new retractions move Jose´ Luis Calvo-Guirado, of Universidad Católica San Antonio de Murcia, into a tie for 24th place on the Retraction Watch leaderboard. 

Calvo-Guirado has in the past disputed the retractions of his research. And at least one of his co-authors, Georgios Romanos, of the State University of New York Stony Brook School of Dental Medicine, speculated that Calvo-Guirado was reusing images to limit the number of lab animals that would need to be sacrificed in his studies.

The latest retractions involve two papers in Annals of Anatomy, an Elsevier publication, including the 2018 article “A new procedure for processing extracted teeth for immediate grafting in post-extraction sockets. An experimental study in American Fox Hound dogs.” According to the notice, the paper contained manipulated images that were reused in subsequently retracted articles:  

Continue reading ‘Misconduct on a grand and terrible scale’: Dental scientist up to 26 retractions

‘I thought I had messed up my experiment’: How a grad student discovered an error that might affect hundreds of papers

Susanne Stoll

Earlier this month, we reported on how Susanne Stoll, a graduate student in the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University College London, discovered an error that toppled a highly-cited 2014 article — and which might affect hundreds of other papers in the field of perception.

We spoke with Stoll about the experience. 

Retraction Watch (RW): What did it feel like to find such a significant error? Did you doubt yourself at first, and, if so when did you realize you’d found something both real and important? 

Continue reading ‘I thought I had messed up my experiment’: How a grad student discovered an error that might affect hundreds of papers

After legal threats from Herbalife, Elsevier journal retracts — and then removes — a paper

Cyriac Abby Philips

Bowing to legal pressure from the supplement maker Herbalife, Elsevier earlier this year retracted — and then removed — a paper which claimed that a young woman in India died of liver failure after using the company’s products. The move has led to more legal threats.

In August 2018, a group of researchers in India published a report in the Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hepatology about the death, involving a 24-year-old woman who had taken a variety of supplements produced by Herbalife, a massive, and massively controversial, maker of nonprescription diet aids. 

The group, led by Cyriac Abby Philips, of Cochin Gastroenterology, in Kerala, India, asserted that tests of Herbalife products similar to those the woman had been taking revealed the presence of heavy metals, bacteria and, in most samples, “undisclosed toxic compounds including traces of psychotropic recreational agent.”

The case report — titled “Slimming to the death: Herbalife®-associated fatal acute liver failure-heavy metals, toxic compounds, bacterial contaminants and psychotropic agents in products sold in India” — is far from the first time scientists have linked Herbalife products to liver damage. They’ve done so here, here and here, to cite just a few instances. 

Continue reading After legal threats from Herbalife, Elsevier journal retracts — and then removes — a paper

Texas bone researcher faked data in Nature paper, says federal watchdog, as university rescinds professorships

Yihong Wan

A pharmacologist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center who lost a highly cited 2014 paper in Nature for questions about the integrity of her data has been sanctioned by the U.S. Office of Research Integrity (ORI) — and UT Southwestern has rescinded two professorships she previously held.

According to ORI, Yihong Wan, an associate professor of pharmacology at UT Southwestern: 

Continue reading Texas bone researcher faked data in Nature paper, says federal watchdog, as university rescinds professorships

Nature Communications retracts much-criticized paper on mentorship

A month after announcing it would be conducting a “priority” investigation into a November 17 paper that claimed women in science fare better with male rather than female mentors, Nature Communications has retracted the article.

In the article, “The association between early career informal mentorship in academic collaborations and junior author performance,” the authors — a trio from New York University’s campus in Abu Dhabi — write that “While current diversity policies encourage same-gender mentorships to retain women in academia, our findings raise the possibility that opposite-gender mentorship may actually increase the impact of women who pursue a scientific career.” It drew nearly immediate criticism, for example:

On November 19, the journal added an editor’s note saying it would be looking into these criticisms, and today, the article was retracted following review by three experts. The retraction notice reads, in part:

Continue reading Nature Communications retracts much-criticized paper on mentorship

Publisher retracts 14 papers by doctor who ran afoul of U.S. FDA for marketing supplements

Marty Hinz
Marty Hinz

Dove Press last week retracted 14 papers by Marty Hinz, a Minnesota doctor who caught the attention of the U.S. FDA years ago for hyping supplements sold by a company he once owned.

The 14 articles — on the use of supplements to treat conditions ranging from Crohn’s disease to Parkinson’s disease — were among 20 that the publisher slapped expressions of concern on earlier this year. The other six articles flagged in April remain under review, a spokesperson for Taylor & Francis, which owns Dove, tells Retraction Watch.

That move came two and a half years after Stephen Barrett — a U.S. physician and founder of Quackwatch — alerted Dove to his concerns about Hinz’s failure to disclose conflicts of interest on the papers. Barrett says Hinz has used those papers to support claims that supplements made by Hinz’s  former company, now owned by his daughter but from which he has received royalties, are effective in treating various conditions.

Continue reading Publisher retracts 14 papers by doctor who ran afoul of U.S. FDA for marketing supplements

Weekend reads: Prof sues journal, school after demotion following retraction; researcher fired after questioning why school rejected grant; the authors who like ‘publish or perish’

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 40.

Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

Continue reading Weekend reads: Prof sues journal, school after demotion following retraction; researcher fired after questioning why school rejected grant; the authors who like ‘publish or perish’

‘I dropped the ball’: Magic bullet falls short of target

James Steele

A sports medicine journal has retracted a widely circulated 2019 meta-analysis which purported to find that interval training was the “magic bullet” for weight loss, after the analysis proved to be riddled with holes. 

The paper, “Is interval training the magic bullet for fat loss? A systematic review and meta-analysis comparing moderate-intensity continuous training with high-intensity interval training (HIIT),” was a collaboration by researchers in Brazil and James Steele, an exercise scientist at the Solent University School of Sport, Health and Social Sciences, in Southampton, England. 

Steele has some cred when it comes to research integrity, and part of that cred comes from another retraction. He was part of a team of data sleuths who have called for the retraction of seven papers by Matheus Barbalho, a Brazilian exercise scientist. 

Continue reading ‘I dropped the ball’: Magic bullet falls short of target

U Maryland virus researcher up to 13 retractions

Siba Samal

A veterinary researcher at the University of Maryland has lost seven papers for problematic images and other issues, bringing his retraction total to 13. 

Siba Samal, who studies viruses and vaccines, lost four of his articles in March after journals determined that figures in the papers were unreliable. And he was a co-author on papers flagged in a U.S. Office of Research Integrity finding of misconduct by another researcher.

Some of those questions were raised — first, it seems — by Elisabeth Bik, who in November 2015 reported her concerns to PLOS ONE about a different one of Samal’s articles, which she also flagged on PubPeer. 

The journal is now retracting that article, titled “Evaluation of the replication, pathogenicity, and immunogenicity of Avian Paramyxovirus (APMV) serotypes 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, and 9 in Rhesus macaques.” According to the retraction notice: 

Continue reading U Maryland virus researcher up to 13 retractions