Nature tags glacier paper with note of concern due to data mix-up

Nature has tagged a recent paper on the importance of glacial melt to water supply in Asia with an expression of concern (EoC), after receiving a tip that the author had misused some data.

The EoC for “Asia’s glaciers are a regionally important buffer against drought,” published by Hamish Pritchard, a glaciologist at the British Antarctic Survey, came out today. The May 11, 2017 article — which has been cited three times, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science — considers the contribution of glaciers to water supply in Central Asia and the potential for glacier loss to exacerbate water stress in the region. The paper received limited news coverage when it came out from science sites, including Phys.org.

Pritchard appears to have improperly used a particular data set — an error that was reported to the journal by two outside experts within weeks after the paper was published.  Continue reading Nature tags glacier paper with note of concern due to data mix-up

20 years of retractions in China: More of them, and more misconduct

Lei Lei

After reviewing nearly 20 years of retractions from researchers based in China, researchers came up with some somewhat unsurprising (yet still disheartening) findings: The number of retractions has increased (from zero in 1997 to more than 150 in 2016), and approximately 75% were due to some kind of misconduct. (You can read more details in the paper, published this month in Science and Engineering Ethics.) We spoke with first author Lei Lei, based in the School of Foreign Languages at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, about what he thinks can be done to improve research integrity in his country.

Retraction Watch: With “Lack of Improvement” right in the title (“Lack of Improvement in Scientific Integrity: An Analysis of WoS Retractions by Chinese Researchers (1997-2016)”), you sound disappointed with your findings.  What findings did you expect — or at least hope — to find, and what are your reactions to the results you did uncover?

Continue reading 20 years of retractions in China: More of them, and more misconduct

Author blamed for misconduct in Cell paper declines to sign retraction notice  

Researchers have retracted a 2015 paper in Cell after an investigation revealed the first author committed misconduct.

According to the retraction notice, which first author Ozgur Tataroglu declined to sign, the researchers realized there was an issue with the 2015 paper when they were unable to replicate the findings. Corresponding author Patrick Emery and his team at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester reviewed the data and found “clear evidence” that Tataroglu  — who had been a postdoc in Emery’s lab — “had repeatedly misrepresented and altered primary data,” the notice states.

UMass subsequently conducted an investigation in which it “concluded that the first author committed scientific misconduct.”  

Here’s the retraction notice for “Calcium and SOL Protease Mediate Temperature Resetting of Circadian Clocks:” Continue reading Author blamed for misconduct in Cell paper declines to sign retraction notice  

Controversial Australian journalist’s paper flagged by journal

The Journal of Biological Chemistry has added an expression of concern to a 2003 paper that arose from the PhD thesis of a once-prominent — and controversial — science journalist in Australia.

The first author of the paper is Maryanne Demasi, a journalist whose reporting created unintentional headlines in recent years. In 2013, she produced a controversial series about cholesterol and fat (and even cast doubt on cholesterol-lowering drugs known as statins); in 2016, she was fired from the science program Catalyst, after it aired an episode alleging wi-fi could cause brain tumors.

Now, it appears the research community is taking a second look at some of the work underlying her PhD in rheumatology from Royal Adelaide Hospital. Here’s the notice from the journal:

Continue reading Controversial Australian journalist’s paper flagged by journal

Researcher discovers paper published by co-author in another journal

In February 2016, Albert Jambon received some puzzling news.

Several colleagues had alerted him to a paper, published online in late December 2015 in the Journal of African Earth Sciences (JAES), reporting the discovery of a rare mineral, which Jambon had been analyzing.

When Jambon read the paper, he realized it was a modified version of a paper he had been working on for almost eight years. Impatient, one of his co-authors, Ahmad Bilal, had published his own version of the manuscript and listed himself as the sole author.

Jambon, a professor at Pierre and Marie Curie University, believes that Bilal’s paper plagiarized his manuscript, but Bilal disputes this allegation. Bilal–who works at Damascus University in Syria–says he couldn’t wait any longer to publish the manuscript, so wrote “a completely new version.” Since the authors couldn’t resolve the authorship dispute, in August 2016, the journal issued a “temporary” expression of concern, alerting readers to the authorship concerns. Now, a year and a half later, a spokesperson for the publisher says it’s going to be retracted.

Eight years is a long time to work on a paper.

Continue reading Researcher discovers paper published by co-author in another journal

UCSF-VA letters to journals offer insight into misconduct investigations

Earlier this month, we reported the retraction of several papers published by researchers with appointments at both the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and the San Francisco Veterans Administration (VA) Medical Center, led by a prominent urologist. Recently, we obtained the letters sent to the journals that retracted the papers, shedding some additional light on the case.

The most notable insight: The institutions couldn’t place blame for the misconduct that led to the three retractions on any one individual.

Through a public records request, Retraction Watch has obtained the letter sent to the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR) — which publishes Cancer Research and Clinical Cancer Research — as well as a similar one sent to the editor of the International Journal of Cancer. UCSF and the VA co-wrote both letters and sent them to request editorial action on articles that the research institutions had found to contain “clear evidence” of research misconduct.

Because the retraction notices for the papers published by Cancer Research and Clinical Cancer Research quoted the AACR letter heavily, there isn’t a lot more to reveal. But the letter does say that the committee “could not determine who was responsible” for the misconduct, even though the co-authors said it was Masahiro Sasaki, first author on both papers.

According to the letter, Sasaki:

Continue reading UCSF-VA letters to journals offer insight into misconduct investigations

Weekend reads: Sexual harassment = scientific misconduct, says one society; favorite plagiarism excuses

The week at Retraction Watch featured an expression of concern in Science just days after a paper was published, mass editorial board resignations over a paper defending colonialism, and two papers retracted for publisher errors. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: Continue reading Weekend reads: Sexual harassment = scientific misconduct, says one society; favorite plagiarism excuses

Prominent food researcher retracts paper from JAMA journal, replaces it with multiple fixes

Brian Wansink

Earlier this week, we reported that high-profile food researcher Brian Wansink — who’s faced months of criticisms about his research — had issued his second retraction. On Thursday, he issued his third.

The retracted paper — a 2012 research letter in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, now JAMA Pediatrics — reported that children were more likely to choose an apple over a cookie if the apple included an Elmo sticker. The same day the paper was retracted, Wansink and his co-authors published a replacement version that includes multiple changes, including to the methodology and the results.

The retraction notice lists the mistakes, which the authors say they made “inadvertently:”

Continue reading Prominent food researcher retracts paper from JAMA journal, replaces it with multiple fixes

Reader complaints prompt retraction of meta-analysis of heart-failure drug

A cardiology journal has retracted a 2016 meta-analysis after the editors had an, ahem, change of heart about the rigor of the study.

The article, “Ivabradine as adjuvant treatment for chronic heart failure,” was published in the International Journal of Cardiology, an Elsevier title.

The authors, a group at the Federal University of São Paulo, Brazil, concluded that: Continue reading Reader complaints prompt retraction of meta-analysis of heart-failure drug

“A gut-wrenching experience:” Authors retract, replace JAMA paper

When economist Jason Hockenberry looked at data comparing some of the financial issues facing different U.S. hospitals, he was surprised by what he saw.

Hockenberry was examining the effects of a recently introduced U.S. program that penalizes hospitals with relatively high rates of readmissions for certain conditions by reducing Medicare payments. Although Hockenberry expected hospitals that serve low-income and uninsured patients to have more readmissions (and therefore more penalties), he saw these so-called “safety-net hospitals” had been steadily improving their performance since the program began in 2012, and had faced fewer penalties over time.

The results were so striking, they ended up in JAMA on April 18, 2017. But within one week after publication, Hockenberry learned outside researchers had raised questions about the analysis.

The outside researchers thought the authors had incorrectly categorized some of the safety-net hospitals. After looking into their concerns, Hockenberry — based at Emory University in Atlanta — realized the analysis did contain errors that affect the findings. This week, he and his co-authors retracted the article, replacing it with a corrected version. The new paper still reports that the gap between the penalties faced by safety-net and non-safety-net hospitals is closing — but not for the reasons they initially thought.  

Continue reading “A gut-wrenching experience:” Authors retract, replace JAMA paper