Search Results for: medical

Fraud’s long tail: Measles outbreak shows why it’s important to look downstream of retractions

As Retraction Watch readers know, public health officials are concerned about a U.S. measles outbreak. As The New York Times notes: The United States has already had more cases of measles in the first month of 2015 than the number that is typically diagnosed in a full year. This follows a year in which the number of … Continue reading Fraud’s long tail: Measles outbreak shows why it’s important to look downstream of retractions

Weekend reads: Savage peer reviews, cosmology claim bites dust, $50 million diet pill hoax

This week at Retraction Watch featured polar opposites: Two new entries in our “doing the right thing” category, and one in our plagiarism euphemism parade. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

Lancet retracts and republishes cardiology paper with admirable notice

One of the papers from a massive heart disease study in China, published in the Lancet, has been retracted and republished after the authors noticed a statistical error. The article, by authors from Peking Union Medical College in China, Yale University, and elsewhere, presented the results of the China PEACE-Retrospective Acute Myocardial Infarction Study, part of … Continue reading Lancet retracts and republishes cardiology paper with admirable notice

Authors issue a model retraction for mistaken bacterial identity

A group in the Netherlands has retracted a case study on the diarrheal pathogen Campylobacter jejuni, commonly found in animal feces, after repeated tests showed the bacteria was actually C. fetus, which also causes spontaneous abortion in cows and sheep. The 46-year-old man who had previously had an aortic valve replacement came to the doctors with endocarditis, an inflammation of … Continue reading Authors issue a model retraction for mistaken bacterial identity

Fraud retraction appears for deceased Maryland dental researcher

A former dental researcher at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, has lost a 2009 paper in the journal Oral Surgery, Oral Medicine, Oral Pathology, Oral Radiology and Endodontology for fabricating his data on an NIH-funded study. The researcher, Mark A. Scheper, is not identified in the retraction notice as the person implicated in the university … Continue reading Fraud retraction appears for deceased Maryland dental researcher

Stem cell researcher Jacob Hanna responds to criticism

Over the past few months, there has been a great deal of criticism of the work of stem cell researcher Jacob Hanna, especially on PubPeer. Now, Hanna has responded in the comments of the PubPeer entries for a number of papers. He has also posted a number of PDFs, including his PhD thesis, and correspondence with scientists … Continue reading Stem cell researcher Jacob Hanna responds to criticism

Franken-paper from U.S. federal contractor heads to the grave

Hindawi journal PPAR Research has pulled a cancer immunology paper after discovering it contained almost no new information. Instead, it was a Frankenstein-style stitch job, containing sentences ripped from 33 different papers. 18 of those ended up in the citations; for 15 more, the authors didn’t even do them that courtesy. You can see a meticulously color-coded call … Continue reading Franken-paper from U.S. federal contractor heads to the grave

Oklahoma postdoc admits to faking data in grant application, submitted paper

A postdoc at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation faked data in a submitted paper and in a grant application, according to a new report from the Office of Research Integrity. Bin Kang admitted to the misconduct, in which he

Fat cell paper earns unusually detailed retraction

A pair of cell biologists have taken responsibility for extensive figure errors that scuttled their paper in the Journal of Cell Biology. While there were five authors, first and last authors Eva Szabo and Michal Opas took responsibility in the notice. A number of figures “contain incorrect data and/or presentation errors,” and the original data isn’t available … Continue reading Fat cell paper earns unusually detailed retraction

Weekend reads: Silenced Anil Potti whistleblower revealed; how to identify scientific crackpots

The first full week of 2015 featured a few drug company-related retractions. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: