Retraction Watch

JAMA journal retracts well-publicized paper linking doctor burnout to patient safety

A JAMA journal has retracted a 2018 paper linking physician burnout to poor patient care, after a misconduct inquiry found evidence of shoddy work but not data fabrication.

The article, “Association between physician burnout and patient safety, professionalism, and patient satisfaction: a systematic review and meta-analysis,” was published in JAMA Internal Medicine by a group based at the National Institute for Health Research Greater Manchester Patient Safety Translational Research Centre, in England. The journal also published a commentary on the article and three letters to the editor, which have been flagged to indicate the new retraction.

The paper — which concluded that burned-out doctors might be jeopardizing the well-being of their patients — received a significant amount of coverage in the media, with stories trumpeting the take-home message that:

Associate VP for research at Georgia State is up to 10 retractions

The associate vice president for research at Georgia State University and founding director of the university’s Center for Molecular and Translational Medicine has had his tenth paper retracted.

Like the nine previous retractions for Ming-Hui Zou, the work underlying the newly retracted paper in PLOS ONE was performed while Zou was at Oklahoma State University.

The extensive retraction notice for “Activation of the AMP-Activated Protein Kinase (AMPK) by Nitrated Lipids in Endothelial Cells” refers to problems in six of the paper’s figures, including unexpected similarities and likely splicing. It concludes:

A ‘very cautious’ process: Journal retracts reviews by anesthesiologist found to have committed fraud a decade ago

A journal has retracted three review articles by Joachim Boldt, the German anesthetist who currently occupies the second spot on the Retraction Watch leaderboard with 103 retractions.

The reviews, which appeared in Intensive Care Medicine, cover articles by Boldt that were published both well before and the same year as his scandal broke in 2010.

One article, from 2000, was titled “Volume therapy in the intensive care patient – we are still confused, but.” According to the retraction notice:

Another whodunit: The author no one can find

Readers, meet Beatriz Ychussie. Or don’t meet Beatriz Ychussie.

Ychussie is a co-author of three recently retracted math papers. Or maybe not.

The three articles — in the Journal of Inequalities and Applications, Advances in Difference Equations, and Fixed Point Theory and Applications, all Springer Nature titles — had an overlapping set of problems, including plagiarism and faked peer review. But they all had one particular problem when it came to Ychussie:

Weekend reads: Revelations about a controversial COVID-19 study; weaponizing uncertainty; a ‘super-spotter’ of duplicated images

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.

Sending thoughts to our readers and wishing them the best in this uncertain time.

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

The story of what it takes to correct a flawed paper about COVID-19.
Two retractions as a yeast researcher risks losing her PhD.
Another loss in court for a cancer researcher.
A report on a researcher who faked data in seven papers and two grant applications.

How many papers about COVID-19 have been retracted? We’ve been keeping track, as part of our database. Here’s our frequently updated list.

Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

Materials science group loses four papers, has four more flagged

A Springer Nature journal has retracted four papers by a group of materials scientists in France, Spain and Tunisia, and slapped expressions of concern on four more.

All eight papers, from Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics, share three common authors: Abdelmajid Lassoued, Salah Ammar, and Abdellatif Gadri, of Université de Gabès in Tunisia. The retractions and expressions of concern all relate to duplicate publication of other work by papers that include various members of the team as authors.

A typical retraction notice, for “Synthesis and characterization of Ni-doped α-Fe2O3 nanoparticles through co-precipitation method with enhanced photocatalytic activities”:

A whodunit: Journal retracts paper that copied from an unpublished manuscript

A journal has retracted a 2015 paper because it apparently plagiarized a manuscript submitted two years earlier — but we’re scratching our heads about how it all happened.

The paper, “Chattering-free variable structure controller design via fractional calculus approach and its application,” was published in Nonlinear Dynamics and has been cited 15 times, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science.

Here’s the notice:

Former U Maryland researcher faked data in seven papers, two Federal grants: ORI

A former veterinary scientist at the University of Maryland has been found guilty of misconduct, including fabrication of data, by the U.S. Office of Research Integrity (ORI).

According to ORI:

Cancer researcher loses defamation suit against critic

Carlo Croce can’t catch a break in court.

Yesterday, a Federal U.S. judge ruled against Croce, a cancer researcher at The Ohio State University, in a case Croce had filed against Purdue University professor David Sanders in 2017. As Judge James Graham, of the Southern District of Ohio Eastern Division, writes in the 36-page ruling — which we’d recommend reading in its entirety:

Covid-19 and sex? Rapid-fire acceptance leads to hasty withdrawal of paper

The Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology has taken down a letter on whether people should abstain from sex during the coronavirus pandemic, but the editor says the article is not being retracted.

Meanwhile, researchers in France have retracted a paper in which they’d claimed to have found replication of the virus that causes Covid-19 in the dialysis fluid of a patient with kidney disease. Again, hasty publication appears to be involved. We’ve been tracking retractions of Covid-19 articles on our website, and, let’s just say, the list is almost certainly a trailing indicator of the robustness of the science here — as it is with retractions during any period.

Back to the letter. “COVID-19: Should sexual practices be discouraged during the pandemic?” was written by ZhiQiang Yin, of the Department of Dermatology at the First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, in China. Yin submitted the article on April 14. The journal accepted it on the 16th and published it on April 30th.

According to the notice:

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