Search Results for: medical

Should scientific misconduct be handled by the police? It’s fraud week at Nature and Nature Medicine

It’s really hard to get papers retracted, police might be best-equipped to handle scientific misconduct investigations, and there’s finally software that will identify likely image manipulation. Those are three highlights from a number of pieces that have appeared in Nature and Nature Medicine in the past few weeks. Not surprisingly, there are common threads, so … Continue reading Should scientific misconduct be handled by the police? It’s fraud week at Nature and Nature Medicine

Nature Medicine retracts MS paper with ghost data by former GSK researcher

Nearly six months after first expressing concern about the validity of a 2010 paper on multiple sclerosis, Nature Medicine has retracted the article for containing “erroneous” data — which in this case don’t seem to have existed, making them more fabricated than wrong. The paper, “Crucial role of interleukin-7 in T helper type 17 survival … Continue reading Nature Medicine retracts MS paper with ghost data by former GSK researcher

Same “difference,” as anesthesia paper retracted for plagiarism

A group of anesthesiology researchers in China has lost their 2011 paper in Der Anaesthesist because, well, the article wasn’t theirs to begin with. The paper, “Different anesthesia methods for laparoscopic cholecystectomy,” came from authors at the 309th Hospital of PLA, in Beijing, who purported to report on a randomized trial of 68 patients undergoing … Continue reading Same “difference,” as anesthesia paper retracted for plagiarism

Retraction prompts letter of explanation by co-author — and a legal threat against Retraction Watch

The European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging has an interesting exchange of retraction-related notices in its pages. The article, “Neuroradiological advances detect abnormal neuroanatomy underlying neuropsychological impairments: the power of PET imaging,” appeared in 2011 and was written by Benjamin Hayempour and Abass Alavi, one of the pioneers in PET imaging. According to … Continue reading Retraction prompts letter of explanation by co-author — and a legal threat against Retraction Watch

Former federal contractor faked data, says ORI

The Office of Research Integrity has found that Timothy Sheehy, formerly a scientist at a contractor for the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research, committed misconduct in work paid for by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), National Institutes of Health (NIH), and a contract to his former company, SAIC-Frederick, Inc. According to a notice in … Continue reading Former federal contractor faked data, says ORI

Lack of ethical clearance prompts expression of concern from bone journal

The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery has issued an expression of concern about a paper whose authors may not have obtained proper ethical clearance. Here’s the notice, signed by editor in chief Vernon Tolo:

PNAS retraction notice reveals name of Leiden University researcher fired for data manipulation

In August, we reported on a case in which a researcher had been fired from Leiden University in the Netherlands for fraud. The university said there would be two retractions, but did not name the researcher in question. At the same time, however, there were clues in the university’s report that suggested it could only … Continue reading PNAS retraction notice reveals name of Leiden University researcher fired for data manipulation

Case report journal pulls paper on metastatic ovarian cancer with falsified data

The journal Case Reports in Medicine has retracted a 2012 article by a group of Turkish authors who made up things in the piece. The paper, “Brain Metastasis as an Initial Manifestation of Ovarian Carcinoma: A Case Report,” came from ob-gyns at Hacettepe University in Ankara, and purported to relate the case of A 30-year-old … Continue reading Case report journal pulls paper on metastatic ovarian cancer with falsified data

Duplication leads to recall of toxicology paper

A group of researchers from Egypt and the United States has lost their 2010 paper in the journal Toxicology in Vitro for recycling many of their own words from a previously published manuscript. The article, “Bacterial lipopolysaccharide-induced oxidative stress in adult rat Sertoli cells in vitro,” was written by Hamdy A.A. Aly, Hany A. El-Shemy … Continue reading Duplication leads to recall of toxicology paper

And the award for the “three most plagiarized papers” goes to…

The Retraction Watch archives are full of dubious distinctions — most retractions by a single researcher, longest time between publication and retraction, etc. — but now we have a competition for another: “The three most plagiarized papers.” That new category comes to us courtesy of a retraction notice in The Scientific World Journal, “Recent Advances … Continue reading And the award for the “three most plagiarized papers” goes to…