JAMA journal quietly replaces diabetes drug commentary after learning co-author is working for drugmaker

JAMA Internal Medicine has replaced a commentary they published last week on the risks of two diabetes drugs, but you wouldn’t know the new version was a replacement. One change is a correction about whether Byetta and Januvia carry so-called “black box” warnings from the FDA. The original sentence: Because both drugs already carry US … Continue reading JAMA journal quietly replaces diabetes drug commentary after learning co-author is working for drugmaker

And then there were eight: Three more retractions for Alirio Melendez, all in the Journal of Immunology

Alirio Melendez, who has already retracted five papers and was found by one of his former universities to have committed misconduct on more than 20, has three more retractions. Here’s the notice for “Antisense Knockdown of Sphingosine Kinase 1 in Human Macrophages Inhibits C5a Receptor-Dependent Signal Transduction, Ca2+ Signals, Enzyme Release, Cytokine Production, and Chemotaxis,” … Continue reading And then there were eight: Three more retractions for Alirio Melendez, all in the Journal of Immunology

Two retractions for scientist whose work is “not fully supported by the available laboratory records”

The head of immunology at India’s Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics, Sunil Kumar Manna, has retracted two papers for image problems. Here’s the notice from Cell Death and Differentiation for “Inhibition of RelA phosphorylation sensitizes apoptosis in constitutive NF-kappaB-expressing and chemoresistant cells:”

Paper by fake cardiologist retracted

Retraction Watch readers may recall the case of William Hamman, the United Airlines pilot who claimed to be a cardiologist until the Associated Press uncovered him in late 2010. Hamman had published at least six papers, and since the revelations has had one retraction and one erratum, by our count. Now comes another retraction, in … Continue reading Paper by fake cardiologist retracted

“Way out there” paper claiming to merge physics and biology retracted

A German professor who claims to have developed “a self-consistent field theory which is used to derive at all known interactions of the potential vortex” will have at least two papers retracted, thanks to the scrutiny of a concerned economist. The first retraction has already appeared, in DNA and Cell Biology, for a paper by … Continue reading “Way out there” paper claiming to merge physics and biology retracted

Med student loses paper when former boss claims right to data

As a first-year medical student at the University of California, San Diego, Jessica Tang already has an impressive CV. Her name has appeared on ten papers in the medical literature, including three in the Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine. On one of these she was the sole author. Except that one doesn’t exist anymore. But the … Continue reading Med student loses paper when former boss claims right to data

Paper linking cell phones during pregnancy to behavior problems in mice corrected

The authors of a study published last year looking at the effects of cell phone exposure on mice in utero have corrected a figure after it was questioned. New experiments, they write, confirm the original conclusions they drew from the figure. Here’s the corrected figure from the paper in Scientific Reports, published by Nature Publishing … Continue reading Paper linking cell phones during pregnancy to behavior problems in mice corrected

Lifted figure prompts retraction of Oncogene paper by Roman-Gomez

The journal Oncogene has retracted a 2005 paper from a group led by Jose Roman-Gomez, a Spanish researcher who appears to be a serial image manipulator/misappropriator. The article, “Promoter hypomethylation of the LINE-1 retrotransposable elements activates sense/antisense transcription and marks the progression of chronic myeloid leukemia,” was published online in September 2005 and has been … Continue reading Lifted figure prompts retraction of Oncogene paper by Roman-Gomez

WordPress removes Anil Potti posts from Retraction Watch in error after false DMCA copyright claim

If you went looking for ten of our posts about Anil Potti today, you would have seen error messages instead. That’s because someone claiming to be from a news site in India alleged we violated their copyright with those ten posts about the former Duke University cancer researcher who has had 19 papers retracted, corrected, … Continue reading WordPress removes Anil Potti posts from Retraction Watch in error after false DMCA copyright claim

Author retracts FASEB Journal paper for data reuse

The FASEB Journal has retracted a 2012 paper by a group from the University of Alabama, Birmingham (UAB), looking at the role of a tumor-suppressing micro-RNA in pulmonary fibrosis. The retraction suggests the provenance of the data are in question, and we learned details of what went wrong. Here’s the notice, which, sadly, is behind … Continue reading Author retracts FASEB Journal paper for data reuse