Retraction Watch

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

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.

U Maryland virus researcher up to 13 retractions

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:

Journal expresses concern — we think — about papers by Surgisphere founder

More than six months after two of the world’s leading medical journals retracted papers on COVID-19 based on suspect data from a questionable company, a journal says it has cleared a raft of articles by the controversial founder of the firm. Or, has it?

Vascular, a SAGE title, says it has investigated all papers in the journal by Sapan Desai that relied on “a significant amount of data,” whatever that means. Desai, you’ll recall, founded Surgisphere, which is now famous for refusing to share its data in articles published in The Lancet and The New England Journal of Medicine.

We counted 18 11 papers in Vascular on which Desai was a co-author. The journal says — in a rather oblique way — that all but two of the articles it examined either checked out or didn’t include enough data to raise alarms.

The expression of concern reads:

‘Caught in the act’: Veterinary researcher caught fabricating gene data, resigns from university job

A research technician at Washington State University resigned after his colleagues caught him fabricating data earlier this year, Retraction Watch has learned.

Ryan Evanoff was working in veterinary microbiology at the Pullman campus when members of the department discovered that he had been falsifying sequencing data in gene studies. According to Robert Mealey, the chair of the Department of Veterinary Clinical Sciences in the College of Veterinary Medicine at Washington State:

The top retractions of 2020: Mostly, but not all, COVID-19

In what has become an annual tradition, our friends at The Scientist asked us to round up what we thought were the biggest retractions of the last 12 months. Not surprisingly, the list is dominated by some of the 39 retractions we’ve seen of COVID-19 studies. But that’s not the whole list.

Head on over to see our picks.

Unmeet the beetles: “A very disappointing story” as authors yank paper on new insect species

Grouvellinus leonardodicaprioi via Wikimedia

Don’t tell the aquatic beetles in the family Grouvellinus Champion 1923, but their number just got a little smaller. Officially speaking, that is. Unofficially, keep that place setting at the holiday table. Well, don’t, if you’re under travel restrictions for COVID-19. You get the picture.

A journal has retracted a 2019 paper describing the discovery of a new member of the family, part of a “citizen science” (or “taxon expedition”) effort to collect samples of the insects in the remote Maliau Basin of Borneo, over a bureaucratic dispute.

Recent forays into the region have turned up several new species of water beetle, including the Grouvellinus leonardodicaprioi, which looks, well, not much like its namesake (yes, that Leonardo DiCaprio).

According to the notice:

Legal researcher up to 23 retractions for false affiliations, plagiarism

A legal scholar with a peripatetic and checkered career — and questionable CV — now has 23 retractions by our count.

Dimitris Liakopoulos, about whom we first wrote in July, has claimed to have held professorships in Europe and the United States, including at Columbia Law School, Stetson University and Tufts University, as well as authorship on some 600 papers. But journals have been retracting his articles over concerns about plagiarism and concerns about his stated academic affiliations. For example, Tufts told us in July that he had never been affiliated with the school.

Liakopoulos appears to have locked his ORCID ID, making public scrutiny of his scholarly output more difficult. But commenters on PubPeer have taken aim at several of his papers over the past few months.

Weekend reads: p-hacking the US election; an apparently fake author sinks a stock; sued for using a research tool

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:

Western University materials scientist committed misconduct, according to investigation
Public health journal “seeking further expert advice” on January paper about COVID-19 PCR testing by high-profile virologist
Researcher at Tehran medical school loses three papers because “overlap without cross-referencing is not legitimated”
Researcher, until last week a Miami dean, faked data in grant applications, says federal watchdog
Authors of meta-analysis on heart disease retract it when they realize a NEJM reference had been retracted
Elsevier looking into “very serious concerns” after student calls out journal for fleet of Star Trek articles, other issues
The grad student who found a fatal error that may affect lots of papers

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 39.

Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

The grad student who found a fatal error that may affect lots of papers

A team of researchers in England has retracted a 2014 paper after a graduate student affiliated with the group found a fatal error while trying to replicate parts of the work — and which might affect similar studies by other scientists, as well.

The article, “Perceptual load affects spatial tuning of neuronal populations in human early visual cortex,” was written by Benjamin de Haas, then of the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at the University College London, and his colleagues at UCL.

According to the retraction notice:

Elsevier looking into “very serious concerns” after student calls out journal for fleet of Star Trek articles, other issues

An undergraduate student in the United Kingdom has taken to task the editors of a purportedly scholarly journal for having published more than 100 papers by a Maltese researcher with a deep affinity for Star Trek.

In a Dec. 8, 2020, letter to the editors of Early Human Development (EHD), Hampton Gaddy, a BA student at the University of Oxford, accuses the journal of having published “a large number of unprofessional articles” by Victor Grech, of the University of Malta.

Grech is a pediatric cardiologist, and, evidently a huge Star Trek fan. He’s also a prolific author, and seems to have turned EHD into something of a personal fanzine. As Gaddy notes in his letter, Grech has written at least 113 papers in EHD, an Elsevier title, 57 as sole author:

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