Retraction Watch

Following Retraction Watch and PubPeer posts, journal upgrades correction to a retraction

A year ago, we posted on the case of a paper in the Journal of Cell Science in which editors:

allowed a group of researchers in Italy to correct a 2016 paper with questionable images after a faculty member in their institution — and a frequent co-author of the group’s — said his investigation found no reason to doubt their integrity.

At the time, the journal told us they were unaware that Fulvio Magni — to whom they were directed “as the person who oversees ethics issues for the institute” — was a frequent co-author with the researchers who had authored the corrected paper.

The same day we posted on the case — Oct. 29, 2019 — a PubPeer commenter pointed out new issues in Figure 4 of the paper. And now, the journal has retracted the paper:

Dear journal: Here’s the information you left out of your retraction notice. You’re welcome.

A biology researcher in Sweden has lost a 2019 article for reasons the journal doesn’t reveal, but which we’ve learned stemmed from misconduct.

The article, “Real time large scale in vivo observations reveal intrinsic synchrony, plasticity and growth cone dynamics of midline crossing axons at the ventral floor plate of the zebrafish spinal cord,” was written by Soren Andersen, then of Uppsala University, and published in the Journal of Integrative Neuroscience.

Here’s the notice:

Widely cited COVID-19-masks paper under scrutiny for inaccurate stat

You probably read a story or heard a news report over the past few days saying that if nearly all Americans wore masks to prevent COVID-19 spread, 130,000 lives could be saved by the end of February. That’s what a paper published on Friday says.

But it turns out that figure sounds twice as good as reality. Here’s the story:

On October 6, a group at the Institute for Health Metrics Evaluation (IHME) — a frequently cited source of COVID-19 data — submitted a manuscript to Nature Medicine. The paper was accepted on October 13, and published on October 23. It concluded:

Paper suggesting vitamin D might protect against COVID-19 earns an expression of concern

PLOS ONE has issued an expression of concern for a paper it published last month suggesting that vitamin D might protect against severe COVID-19.

Central to the concerns is that the authors seem to have been too far out over their skis in asserting a link between the vitamin and the response to the infection. But as the EoC reveals, many of the potential problems can fairly be attributed to porous peer review as much as over-ambitious authors.

The article, “Vitamin D sufficiency, a serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D at least 30 ng/mL reduced risk for adverse clinical outcomes in patients with COVID-19 infection,” came from a group at Tehran University of Medical Sciences in Iran and Boston University in the United States. According to the authors:

Weekend reads: The researcher who publishes a paper every two days; “are publishers learning from their mistakes?”; overcoming COVID-19 misinformation

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:

A journal that took six years to retract a paper.
A researcher who faked the names of co-authors at Duke and the University of Chicago.
The retraction and replacement of a paper on chronic fatigue in children.
The retraction of a paper on algebra because of questions about the “integrity of the mathematics.”
The retraction of a 1974 paper, “Behavioral treatment of deviant sex‐role behaviors in a male child.”

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 37.

Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

Journal flags — but does not retract — decades-old paper on “correcting” gender identity

A psychology journal has expressed concern about a 46-year-old paper which described attempts to correct “deviant” gender identity in a 5-year-old boy using physical violence — the latest example of journals purging (or semi-purging) their pages of offensive studies.

The 1974 article, “Behavioral treatment of deviant sex‐role behaviors in a male child,” appeared in the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis. Its authors were O. Ivar Lovaas, a controversial psychologist, and George Rekers, who pushed now long-discredited conversion therapy and whose career flamed out spectacularly, as the journal’s editors note in an editorial published alongside the expression of concern:

Algebra paper retracted because of questions about the “integrity of the mathematics”

A physicist who in 2016 threatened to sue Elsevier after the publisher retracted one of his papers has lost another article over concerns about the “integrity of the mathematics” in the paper.

The article, “Eight-dimensional octonion-like but associative normed division algebra,” by Joy Christian, of the Einstein Centre for Local-Realistic Physics in Oxford, UK, appeared in Communications in Algebra in July 2020. According to the notice:

BMJ journal retracts, replaces study on chronic fatigue in children

A BMJ journal has retracted and replaced a paper on chronic fatigue in children after admitting that it misrepresented the nature of the research in the editing process. But the article has drawn scrutiny beyond merely the characterization of the analysis.

The paper, “Cognitive–behavioural therapy combined with music therapy for chronic fatigue following Epstein-Barr virus infection in adolescents: a feasibility study,” appeared in early April in BMJ Paediatrics Open, and was written by a group in Norway. The paper is technically not about chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), but in the introduction the authors write:

If accompanied by other symptoms, such as exertion intolerance, chronic pain and cognitive impairments, the patient might fulfil one of the diagnostic criteria for chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).

Researcher faked the names of Duke and University of Chicago co-authors

A medical journal has retracted two papers by a researcher with a penchant for fabricating co-authors.

According to the Singapore Medical Journal and earlier news reports, Shunjie Chua published the articles with two fictitious authors: Mark Pitts and Peter Lamark, whom he placed at Duke University and the University of Chicago.

The articles, “A simple, flexible and readily applicable method of boundary construction to prevent leech migration,” and “A handy way to handle hemoclips® in surgeries,” appeared in 2015. Per the retraction notice for the former:

Hands up! Carpal tunnel expert loses 12th paper for misconduct

You can no longer count on two hands the number of retractions tallied by Young Hak Roh, an orthopedic surgeon at Ewha Womans University in Korea found guilty of “intentional, repetitive, and serious misconduct.”

The hand specialist has notched his 12th retraction in the wake of the institutional investigation, which, as we reported in July, found sweeping violations by Roh of:

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