Meet a sleuth whose work has resulted in more than 850 retractions

Nick Wise had always been “slightly interested” in research integrity and fraud, just from working in science.  Then, last July, from following image sleuth Elisabeth Bik on Twitter, he learned about the work of Guillaume Cabanac, Cyril Labbé, and Alexander Magazinov identifying “tortured phrases” in published papers.  Such phrases – such as “bosom peril,” meaning … Continue reading Meet a sleuth whose work has resulted in more than 850 retractions

Paper co-authored by Australian journalist Maryanne Demasi to be marked with expression of concern

Another article co-authored by Australian journalist Maryanne Demasi will be marked with an expression of concern for image duplication, Retraction Watch has learned.  Demasi’s reporting has cast doubt on statins and raised the possibility of a link between wi-fi and brain tumors – controversial claims she and co-authors have previously told us they believe made … Continue reading Paper co-authored by Australian journalist Maryanne Demasi to be marked with expression of concern

Catch and kill: What it’s like to try to get a NEJM paper corrected

Last month,  the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) published a letter to the editor and a response reflecting a quite modest correction.  Essentially, the three letters “miR” will be removed from throughout a manuscript as the data, to date, do not support there being a human novel microRNA blood-based biomarker for myocarditis, as the … Continue reading Catch and kill: What it’s like to try to get a NEJM paper corrected

Paper co-authored by sleuth Elisabeth Bik marked with expression of concern

A paper with scientific sleuth Elisabeth Bik as a co-author now has an expression of concern. It dated back to her time at the now-defunct startup uBiome and described research that the company used to develop a clinical test of bacteria living in the human gut – and that she raised concerns about some years … Continue reading Paper co-authored by sleuth Elisabeth Bik marked with expression of concern

Former medical school dean earns sixth retraction

A kidney researcher and former dean of a medical school has now had six papers retracted and one marked with an expression of concern in a little more than a year.  The latest retraction for Joseph I. Shapiro, of a 2015 paper in Science Advances, comes two years after PubPeer commenters began posting about potentially … Continue reading Former medical school dean earns sixth retraction

Med school vice dean says he’s correcting paper amid negative misconduct inquiry

A gastroenterology research group led by a vice dean at a medical school has requested that a journal correct a paper with an image duplicated from an earlier study by the same group, Retraction Watch has learned. The journal has not yet determined what kind of notice to place on the article. The group’s leader … Continue reading Med school vice dean says he’s correcting paper amid negative misconduct inquiry

Dental school dean up to five retractions for cancer research papers

A dental school dean with a history of publishing cancer research papers is up to five retractions.  Russell Taichman, the dean of the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s school of dentistry, lost two papers in Cancer Research earlier this month, after losing three others since 2020. Most of the retractions came after PubPeer comments about … Continue reading Dental school dean up to five retractions for cancer research papers

Exclusive: NIH researcher resigned amid retractions, including Nature paper

A tenure-track investigator at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), a division of the National Institutes of Health, resigned in March, as questions mounted about her work, Retraction Watch has learned.  Jennifer Martinez has retracted at least two papers, including a 2016 Nature paper with the chair of the immunology department at St. … Continue reading Exclusive: NIH researcher resigned amid retractions, including Nature paper

Brain tumor researchers retract paper from Science journal

A brain tumor researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, has retracted a paper from Science Translational Medicine, and is a co-author on an article that another journal is examining.  The problems in both papers, and several others with shared authors, came to light via comments on PubPeer by Elisabeth Bik and a pseudonymous … Continue reading Brain tumor researchers retract paper from Science journal

Nobel Prize winner Gregg Semenza retracts four papers

A Johns Hopkins researcher who shared the 2019 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology has retracted four papers from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) for concerns about images in the articles. Gregg Semenza is “one of today’s preeminent researchers on the molecular mechanisms of oxygen regulation,” the work for which he … Continue reading Nobel Prize winner Gregg Semenza retracts four papers