Search Results for: medical

Hmm: Authors retract paper rather than allow discussion of politics of organ donation in China

Organ donation in China, particularly the practice of using organs from executed prisoners, which the government pledged to stop by the middle of this year, has been a controversial subject. For a group of authors in that country and the U.S, a letter criticizing their work that introduced “the political situation of organ donation in … Continue reading Hmm: Authors retract paper rather than allow discussion of politics of organ donation in China

Weekend reads: Publish a paper, get $10,000!; Lancet editor Horton under fire

Another busy week at Retraction Watch. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: Publish a paper, get $10,000! “Following the publication in The Lancet last month of an open letter to the people of Gaza, a number of doctors have begun a petition to force editor-in-chief Richard Horton to resign. Should medical journals get political?

The tell-tale heart: Cardiovascular surgeons notch two retractions for plagiarism

Sometimes plagiarism can be tricky to catch when an article has to be translated before publication. That seems to be the case for two papers out of a hospital in Canakkale, Turkey, that discussed results of two different kinds of heart surgery. Here’s the retraction notice for “The effects of 21 and 23 milimeter aortic valve … Continue reading The tell-tale heart: Cardiovascular surgeons notch two retractions for plagiarism

Serial figure fakers have expression of concern upgraded to a retraction

Another retraction has appeared up for frequent fliers Jun Li, Kailun Zhang and Jiahong Xia at Huazhong Science and Technology University in Wuhan, China. We’ve covered them twice before, for a variety of retractions, corrections, and expressions of concern. The retraction, in Clinical and Experimental Immunology, upgrades an expression of concern published earlier this year, and is … Continue reading Serial figure fakers have expression of concern upgraded to a retraction

Anesthesiologist “con man” apologizes for faking cover-up charges against Australian university

It’s not uncommon for scientists accused of wrongdoing — especially if they’re fired for it — to attempt to muddy the waters by claiming that they are being framed because they had threatened to blow the whistle on others.  Some of those stories have more than a grain of truth to them. Here’s one that … Continue reading Anesthesiologist “con man” apologizes for faking cover-up charges against Australian university

UT-Southwestern cancer research group notches ninth retraction

A research team at the University of Texas-Southwestern that has retracted eight papers for image manipulation has retracted another, this one in Lung Cancer. Here’s the notice for “Aberrant methylation of Reprimo in lung cancer,” published by Adi Gazdar’s group:

“Authors, please call us. Pretty please? OK, we’re going to retract your paper!”

The title of this post isn’t exactly how the one-sided conversation between the editors of Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment and a group of researchers went. But it seems likely it was pretty close. Here’s an expression of concern for “A cross-sectional study on perception of stigma by Chinese schizophrenia patients:”

ORI sanctions collaborator of Nobel winner Buck for data fabrication

The Office of Research Integrity has sanctioned a former researcher in the lab of Linda Buck, winner of the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, for falsifying data in two papers written with the support of grants from the National Institutes of Health. The researcher, Zou Zhihua, worked with Buck as a post-doc at … Continue reading ORI sanctions collaborator of Nobel winner Buck for data fabrication

If only more retractions could be like this: Authors of cardiac stem cell paper show the way

Researchers at Qingdao University have fully retracted a paper originally published in Molecular Medicine Reports with a clear, detailed outline of what went wrong and how they discovered the error. Here’s the notice for “Generation of induced pluripotent stem cells using skin fibroblasts from patients with myocardial infarction under feeder-free conditions:”

SAGE Publications busts “peer review and citation ring,” 60 papers retracted

This one deserves a “wow.” SAGE Publishers is retracting 60 articles from the Journal of Vibration and Control after an investigation revealed a “peer review and citation ring” involving a professor in Taiwan. [Please see an update on this post.] Here’s the beginning of a statement from SAGE: