Markets undergo flash crashes — when stocks or bonds rapidly nosedive in value and then just as rapidly recover — every day. On May 6, 2010, for example, the entire equity market flamed out and then nearly recovered its value all in the matter of hours. Economic papers can do the same, apparently. Take the … Continue reading Markets crash, and so does a paper explaining why
A group of veterinary researchers from Taiwan has lost their 2012 paper in the Journal of Chromatography B for misuse of propriety material. What that means we’re not quite sure, but we have a guess. The article, “Pilot production of recombinant human clotting factor IX from transgenic sow milk,” was published last July by four … Continue reading Misuse of data forces retraction of paper on sow’s milk
Bharat Aggarwal, an MD Anderson researcher under investigation by his institution, has threatened to sue us. Today, we received a letter from the Houston firm of Paranjpe & Mahadass LLP telling us to pull every post related to their client off our site within 20 days, or they’d “file a lawsuit against” us on his … Continue reading MD Anderson’s Bharat Aggarwal threatens to sue Retraction Watch
A potential weight loss drug has been dealt what could be a serious setback after regulators found problems at two trial sites. While awaiting a final report, The Lancet, which published a study of the drug, tesofensine, has issued an Expression of Concern:
Whose business are the reasons behind a retraction? Our readers will no doubt know by now that we think they’re basically everyone’s — at least if journals want us to believe that they’re interested in maintaining the integrity of the scientific record. But not all editors seem to agree. Hank Edmunds, for example, didn’t in … Continue reading Editor on retraction details: “I do not think this is the business of anyone but our journal, please”
A paper suggesting that scientists may want to rethink what levels of benzene are carcinogenic has led to a sharp exchange in the journal that originally published it. In 2006, Stephen Rappaport, of UNC-Chapel Hill, and colleagues, published a paper that began by saying that benzene is an important industrial chemical that is also emitted … Continue reading Environmental scientists call for retraction of oil industry-funded paper on benzene exposure
Colin Purrington has developed something of a niche in the research world. While teaching evolutionary biology at Swarthmore College, Purrington began developing a how-to manual for putting together poster presentations for meetings — a pursuit that has earned him a little money and some attention. The result is a website, Designing conference posters, that, by … Continue reading Plagiarism spat over scientific poster prep advice escalates to legal threats
Quick updates on work by two people whose names appear frequently on Retraction Watch: Diederik Stapel and Ulrich Lichtenthaler. Last month, we reported on the 50th retraction for Stapel. Here’s number 51 in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, for “The flexible unconscious: Investigating the judgmental impact of varieties of unaware perception:”
We’ve been following the case of Kenji Okajima, a professor at Nagoya City University in Japan who was suspended for six months following an investigation into work in his lab. Bits of the story — including at least one other university investigation, and scrutiny of Okajima’s colleagues, one of whom was fired — have been … Continue reading Kenji Okajima retraction count grows to five
Earlier this month, we brought you the story of a paper in a journal about business ethics being retracted for — wait for it — plagiarism. The paper that seemed to be the one in question — see the post for why that was a bit unclear — was by Benjamin A. Neil, a professor … Continue reading Is defining plagiarism “like catching smoke in a butterfly net?” Towson professor under investigation