The week at Retraction Watch featured a new member of our leaderboard and a discussion of what would happen if peer reviewers didn’t look at results. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
A tribunal in the UK has rejected an appeal by Queen Mary University of London, who sought to reverse a previous order that they release data from a controversial 2011 paper in The Lancet about chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). The decision is one in a long series of judgments about the so-called PACE trial, which reported … Continue reading UK tribunal orders release of data from controversial chronic fatigue syndrome study
Authors of systematic review articles sometimes overlook misconduct and conflicts of interest present in the research they are analyzing, according to a recent study published in BMJ Open. During the study, researchers reviewed 118 systematic reviews published in 2013 in four high-profile medical journals — Annals of Internal Medicine, the British Medical Journal, The Journal of the American … Continue reading Should systematic reviewers report suspected misconduct?
The week at Retraction Watch featured an inscrutable retraction notice, and a raft of new retractions for a cancer researcher who once threatened to sue us. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
A prominent cancer researcher in England has been banned from practicing medicine and has lost his funding from a UK charity after being found to have fabricated data in grant applications. The moves against the researcher, Thorsten Hagemann, come after investigations by the General Medical Council, akin to a U.S. state medical board, and Hagemann’s former … Continue reading UK doctor banned from practice after fabricating data in grant applications
Last month, Ranjit Kumar Chandra was denied an extension to file an appeal of his lawsuit against the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). It seemed to mark the end of a long fall for the self-proclaimed “father of nutritional immunology,” who has ended up with multiple high-profile retractions and on the wrong end of a costly libel … Continue reading Who is Ranjit Kumar Chandra? A timeline of notoriety
The week at Retraction Watch featured the loss of a Harvard researcher’s PhD for misconduct, and the harrowing tale of a whistleblower. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
Remember last week, when JAMA replaced an article about the impact of moving homes on kids’ mental health after discovering some errors in the analysis? We’re going to see more of these somewhat unusual notices coming out of JAMA journals in the near future – the JAMA Network journals may issue more “retract and replace” … Continue reading Retract – and replace? JAMA may expand use of this tool
The self-proclaimed “father of nutritional immunology,” Ranjit Kumar Chandra, has lost two more papers following the release of a misconduct investigation report by his former employer, Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN). The report was released last year after Chandra lost his libel suit against the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC). The newly retracted papers were both published in Nutrition Research. On … Continue reading Nutrition researcher loses two more papers after misconduct findings come to light
Surgeon Paolo Macchiarini did not apply for the necessary ethics approval to perform the pioneering transplants he’s known for, according to the Swedish Research Council. Chief Legal Counsel Anna Hörnlund, who wrote a letter in this week’s The Lancet, says Macchiarini’s work needed to obtain ethical approval from one of six regional ethical review boards, as required by … Continue reading Macchiarini did not obtain necessary ethics approvals, says Swedish Research Council