Study that said hate cuts 12 years off gay lives fails to replicate

A highly cited paper has received a major correction as a result of the ongoing battle over attitudes towards gay people, when a prominent — and polarizing — critic showed it could not be replicated.  

In December 2017, researchers led by Mark Hatzenbuehler of Columbia University corrected the paper, originally published in Social Science & Medicine in February 2014, which showed that gay people who live in areas where people were highly prejudiced against them had a significantly shorter life expectancy. The corrigendum came more than a year after a researcher who has testified against same-sex marriage was unable to replicate the original study.

“Structural stigma and all-cause mortality in sexual minority populations,” has been cited 102 times, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science, and attracted media coverage when it was published, from outlets such as Reuters and U.S. News & World Report.

Continue reading Study that said hate cuts 12 years off gay lives fails to replicate

Caught Our Notice: Swiss group loses 4th paper for data manipulation

Title: Dysferlin Interacts with Histone Deacetylase 6 and Increases alpha-Tubulin Acetylation

What Caught Our Attention:  After losing three articles for data manipulation, Michael Sinnreich has retracted another paper in PLoS ONE.  All four retractions share some of the same authors, including Bilal Azakir and Sabrina Di Fulvio, who is listed as the first author on the latest retraction. None of the notices have identified a person responsible for the data manipulation. Three years ago, PubPeer user had flagged some of the figures mentioned in the notice — noting that he was “led to this paper by a story on Retraction Watch” — most likely, a 2014 post that flagged an ongoing discussion about one of Sinnreich’s papers on PubPeer. Continue reading Caught Our Notice: Swiss group loses 4th paper for data manipulation

Macchiarini, 3 co-authors found guilty of misconduct in 2015 paper

The Karolinska Institutet in Sweden has declared that once-lauded surgeon Paolo Macchiarini and three co-authors committed misconduct in a 2015 paper.

The decision by KI’s vice chancellor will be followed by a request to retract the paper, published by the journal Respiration.

In the paper, the researchers described the case of a man with an acute lung disorder, in which he received an experimental treatment involving the use of his own blood-derived cells and the drug erythropoietin, which stimulates the production of red blood cells. The patient “demonstrated an immediate, albeit temporary, clinical improvement,” according to the authors. However, he ultimately died of multisystem organ failure.

Continue reading Macchiarini, 3 co-authors found guilty of misconduct in 2015 paper

University defends researcher accused of plagiarizing former Pope

Peter Schulz

A university in Switzerland has come to the defense of a communications researcher found guilty of plagiarism — and sanctioned after facing additional allegations, including plagiarizing a former Pope.

On Jan. 18, the Swiss newspaper, Ticinonline, published a statement from the University of Lugano in response to recent allegations that Peter J. Schulz had plagiarized from Pope John Paul II (who died in 2005) and the English philosopher, Sir Anthony Kenny, in a 2001 book chapter. The university told the Swiss paper that it will not be opening a new investigation into Schulz.

In response to allegations of plagiarism in 2016, the university investigated and, in August 2016, temporarily suspended Schulz for the 2017 fall semester for misappropriating the work of others. (So far, Schulz has lost three book chapters—including the chapter where he plagiarized from the former Pope—and two papers. He’s also received three errata for plagiarism and failing to properly cite others’ work.)

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For the second time, researchers retract — then republish — a vaccine paper

Photo credit: Blake Patterson

Two researchers with a troubled publication history about vaccine safety have withdrawn their third paper.

Along with several other co-authors, Christopher Shaw, of the University of British Columbia, and Lucija Tomljenovic, of the Neural Dynamics Research Group, recently withdrew a 2017 paper about a controversy over a tetanus vaccination program in Kenya.  

The paper has been republished in the same journal, adding another chapter to Shaw and Tomljenovic’s confusing record of publishing and withdrawing papers. The journal did not respond to our request for comment, but Shaw told Retraction Watch:

Continue reading For the second time, researchers retract — then republish — a vaccine paper

Who reports more misconduct: Scientists in industry or academia?

Simon Godecharle

Who will admit to keeping poor records, gifting authorship, or even more obvious forms of misconduct such as plagiarism? Simon Godecharle at University of Leuven and his colleagues asked 2000 scientists from academia and industry in Belgium, and reported their findings in a recent paper for Science and Engineering Ethics. We spoke to Godecharle about the fact that most respondents admitted to engaging in at least one of the 22 items designated as misconduct — and why he thinks people in academia were more likely to ‘fess up than industry scientists.

Retraction Watch: You didn’t limit misconduct to fraud and plagiarism, and instead included problematic behaviors such as cutting corners to save time, gift authorship, and poor record-keeping. Still, you showed that 71% of respondents from academia and 61% of respondents from industry admitted to engaging in at least one of the 22 forms of misconduct. Did those numbers surprise you?

Continue reading Who reports more misconduct: Scientists in industry or academia?

Journal retracts note of concern after court settles authorship dispute

A journal has retracted a warning posted to a paper involved in an authorship dispute, after the issue was resolved in a court case.

In an editorial published Jan. 10, editors at the journal Molecules wrote that they were removing the expression of concern for “Helleborus purpurascens—Amino Acid and Peptide Analysis Linked to the Chemical and Antiproliferative Properties of the Extracted Compounds.”

The editors flagged the 2015 paper in June, 2016 after a researcher in Germany also claimed authorship. In the 2016 notice, the editors wrote:

Continue reading Journal retracts note of concern after court settles authorship dispute

Caught Our Notice: An article about repetition is duplicated? Priceless

Title: Does repetition help? Impact of destination promotion videos on perceived destination image and intention-to-visit change

What Caught Our Attention: At times we get to just appreciate the moment: A paper focused on repetition — specifically, linking repeated exposure to travel videos and actual visits to the location — got retracted for duplication.  The notice says the duplications were “inadvertent;” perhaps these researchers were motivated by their research? This isn’t the first time authors have been tripped up by their own subjects — in 2015, a researcher retracted his guidelines on plagiarism for…you guessed it. (Plagiarism.) Continue reading Caught Our Notice: An article about repetition is duplicated? Priceless

Weekend reads: What’s wrong with peer review; a retraction poem; how journal formats mangle science

The week at Retraction Watch featured the retraction of a paper on the effects of fracking, authors who retracted a paper when they realized they’d been studying the wrong species, and a story about why a paper linked to an alleged doping scandal in Norway was retracted. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

Continue reading Weekend reads: What’s wrong with peer review; a retraction poem; how journal formats mangle science

Second paper tied to drug scandal in Norway ski team retracted

Researchers in Norway have retracted a second high-profile exercise paper — again after running afoul of an ethical approval committee.

As part of the 2016 study, the researchers gave athletes asthma medication to measure its effect on signals from the nervous system to the lungs; although the drug appeared to have no detectable effect on the nervous system signals, 45 minutes after getting the drug, athletes (including those without asthma) showed an average slight increase in one measure of lung function.

Annette Birkeland, of The Norwegian National Research Ethics Committees (FEK), told us:

Continue reading Second paper tied to drug scandal in Norway ski team retracted