What Caught Our Attention: When a reader noticed that six panels in one figure from a 2013 paper looked a little fishy, the authors decided to take a closer look. Following an internal investigation, the authors learned that a laboratory technician had manipulated the panels after realizing some of the original data had been lost. Continue reading Caught Our Notice: When data went missing, lab tech filled in the gaps
A researcher has retracted a 2009 chemistry paper after discovering that a figure had been “inappropriately edited.”
According to the journal, a reader brought the images in question in Figure 1 to the editors’ attention last September. Timothy P. Lodge, distinguished professor at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis — and editor of Macromolecules through December 2017 — told Retraction Watch:
Continue reading Author retracts 2009 chemistry paper with “heavily doctored” images
The week at Retraction Watch featured a researcher whose ideas were stolen at least three times, a victory for Crossfit in its attempt to reveal peer reviewers, and the second delisting of a cancer journal by an index that praised it just months ago. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: Continue reading Weekend reads: Why scientists respond badly to criticism; hidden retractions; journal cancels issue
A court is reportedly telling a journal to unmask a retracted paper’s peer reviewers, part of a defamation lawsuit involving the journal’s publisher and the CrossFit exercise brand.
According to an attorney representing CrossFit, yesterday Judge Joel Wohlfeil of the San Diego Superior Court decided that the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) must turn over to CrossFit the names of peer reviewers of “Crossfit-based high-intensity power training improves maximal aerobic fitness and body composition,” by Jan. 26. The names will be revealed under a protective order, the lawyer said, meaning CrossFit and the other defendants will see them but cannot disclose them to others.
Continue reading Judge orders journal to identify peer reviewers: CrossFit lawyer
A company that indexes journals — which, in turn, designates their impact factors — has delisted Oncotarget, a cancer journal that was recently removed from MEDLINE.
Just three months ago, on October 18, the indexing company Clarivate Analytics (formerly part of Thomson Reuters) named Oncotarget a “rising star” in the field of molecular biology and genetics.
News of the Clarivate delisting has been circulating on Chinese-language blogs, and Oncotarget acknowledged what happened on its own website:
Continue reading Indexing company praises cancer journal, then kicks it out
As many readers know, we’ve been hard at work curating a comprehensive database of retractions, and are now up to more than 16,000 entries. Despite that large number — as much as triple what you’ll find in commonly used databases — we know there are notices we’re missing.
We’re doing our best to fill in the gaps, but the work will go faster with help. So if you come across a recent or previous retraction, and don’t see it in our database, let us know about it using this form. None of the fields is required, but the more information we have, the quicker we’ll be able to add the relevant details. Please note: This isn’t for papers that you think should be retracted; send us tips about those to [email protected]. (And to answer a question we are often asked: Yes, we plan for an API of the database, once it’s comprehensive.)
Thanks in advance!
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Neuroscientists have retracted a 2016 paper examining the genetic underpinnings of a degenerative motor neuron disease, after discovering that two mouse lines had been accidentally mislabeled.
According to the retraction notice, published in December in Acta Neuropathologica Communications, mice engineered to have a specific genetic mutation were mislabeled as the normal or wild type group.
The notice cites an investigation by the University of Florida; we asked the university for a copy of the report. The university sent us a redacted document, which a spokesperson told us was a self-report from the researchers regarding the mislabeling. The spokesperson explained: Continue reading “A painful lesson:” Authors retract paper after discovering mislabeled mouse lines
An emergency medicine journal has retracted a letter to the editor, saying it didn’t include the author’s relevant commercial interest—which the author says he tried to disclose when he submitted the paper.
The author, Guy Weinberg, told Retraction Watch he had noted his conflict of interest when he submitted the letter last March, but said he did not use the journal’s disclosure form. He added that his primary concern is that the editors didn’t reach out to him to discuss the issue prior to retracting the letter.
Here’s the retraction notice for “Assessing Efficacy of Lipid in Unstable, non-LAST Overdose Patients,” published on Sept. 18 in the Canadian Journal of Emergency Medicine: Continue reading Journal retracts letter for missing disclosure author says he tried to submit
Researchers from Nepal who had two papers retracted last year for plagiarism will face sanctions, according to a local media report.
According to coverage last month from Republica, a news outlet in Nepal, the editor of Bali Medical Journal said he will blacklist the six authors. In a follow-up article, Dipak Shrestha, associate dean of Kathmandu University in Dhulikhel, Nepal, said the university plans to fire the four doctors who work there. (We contacted the journal and the university to confirm that the researchers have been blacklisted and fired, but have not heard back.)
Here’s the retraction notice for the 2013 paper, “Dyslipidemia in Type-2 Diabetes Mellitus Patients in Western of Nepal: A Hospital Based Study:” Continue reading Authors who lost two papers for plagiarism will be fired from university: report
Another front has opened up in the legal battle between the CrossFit exercise brand and a competitor, spurred by a now-retracted paper about the risk of injury from the workout program. Soon, a judge will decide whether CrossFit is entitled to learn the names of the study’s peer reviewers.
CrossFit has tried and failed to identify them before. If they’re successful now, it could help establish a new way to legally breach reviewer confidentiality; two outside lawyers we consulted said they’d never before seen a court order a journal to reveal an article’s peer reviewers.
On Jan. 18, Judge Joel Wohlfeil of the Superior Court of the State of California in San Diego is scheduled to hold a hearing on whether or not the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) should be compelled to unmask the reviewers for “Crossfit-based high-intensity power training improves maximal aerobic fitness and body composition.”
The article was published in 2013 in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research (JSCR), the official research publication of the NSCA, and was retracted last year. It’s referred to as the “Devor article” in the court documents, after last author Steven Devor, a former professor at The Ohio State University (OSU).
A “discovery referee” assigned to the defamation case recently ordered NSCA to provide CrossFit with the reviewers’ names, but NSCA is challenging those rulings, saying that they have the same right to protect their sources as journalists do.
Continue reading CrossFit asks court to unmask peer reviewers of retracted study