Last March, a PhD student at Harvard filed a misconduct allegation against his mentor, a prominent stem cell researcher. Three months later, he was taken from his home by police in the middle of the night for a forced psychiatric evaluation. How did this happen?
The week at Retraction Watch featured a discussion of whether peer reviewers should replicate experiments, and a look at whether social psychology really has a retraction problem. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
It has been a tough couple of years for surgeon Paolo Macchiarini, once lauded for pioneering a groundbreaking procedure to transplant tracheas. After a series of documentaries prompted his former employer, Karolinska Institutet (KI), to reopen a misconduct investigation against him, KI has today released one verdict regarding a 2014 Nature Communications paper: guilty. KI said … Continue reading Karolinska requests retraction of 2014 Macchiarini paper
Earlier this month, Morris Karmazyn, an award-winning cardiovascular researcher who’s published hundreds of papers, was called into a meeting with the office of faculty relations at the University of Western Ontario, and terminated. The reason? A series of image problems in some of his papers, raised by a former member of his lab. When Karmazyn, Canada … Continue reading Prominent heart researcher dismissed by Ontario university; colleagues appeal
A new analysis of retractions from Korean journals reveals some interesting trends. For one, the authors found most papers in Korean journals are retracted for duplication (57%), a higher rate than what’s been reported in other studies. The authors also deemed some retractions were “inappropriate” according to guidelines established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) … Continue reading What do retractions look like in Korean journals?
Nature Communications has issued an expression of concern for a 2014 paper by beleaguered surgeon Paolo Macchiarini, citing concerns over whether the paper accurately reports the experiments that were carried out. According to the notice, Macchiarini, a former rising star in the field of transplant medicine, agrees with the expression of concern. Three of his 22 … Continue reading Macchiarini paper in Nature journal earns expression of concern for data questions
Earlier this year, a nutrition journal retracted an article about the potential dangers of eating food containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs), noting the paper contained a duplicated image. At the time, news outlets in Italy were reporting accusations that the last author, Federico Infascelli, an animal nutrition researcher at the University of Naples, had falsified some of his … Continue reading Retraction notice for GMO paper updated to include fraud
The week at Retraction Watch featured doubts about the effects of oxytocin, aka the “love hormone,” and a report on how common reference errors are. Here’s what was happening elsewhere, with apologies for the later-than-usual posting:
Paolo Macchiarini — once a world-renowned surgeon for creating tracheas from cadavers and patients’ own stem cells – has been dogged for years by accusations of misconduct. Officials at his institution, Karolinska Institute, initially cleared him of many charges, but that all changed earlier this year, when Swedish Television (SVT) aired a series of documentaries about Macchiarini … Continue reading Meet the filmmakers who cracked open the case against star surgeon Macchiarini
Fazlul Sarkar has not had a good month: In the last few weeks, he has earned 13 retractions across four journals, the latest in the fallout from a string of legal cases that have pitted him against one of science publishing’s major players. Sarkar gained attention in 2014 when he sued anonymous commenters of PubPeer for defamation, and … Continue reading Meet the researcher with 13 retractions who’s trying to sue PubPeer commenters: Fazlul Sarkar