“The retraction that took years” is a common enough refrain on Retraction Watch that it might as be its own genre. Here’s one that didn’t. A journal wasted no time pouncing on a suspect paper, retracting the 2016 article just three days after a commenter flagged concerns about the images in the work on PubPeer. … Continue reading Often, retractions take years. This one took three days.
A Springer Nature journal has retracted a paper sourced from a paper mill – not an uncommon occurrence nowadays. What adds a bit of intrigue is that the manuscript was submitted with a fake email address to keep the alleged corresponding author from knowing about it. The paper, “Electrophysiological Follow-Up of Patients with Chronic Peripheral … Continue reading Researcher uses fake email address to submit a paper mill manuscript without corresponding author’s knowledge
The Anatomical Record is correcting itself in a big way, pulling 13 articles, including several linked to paper mills. The papers, all by authors in China, were published between 2019 and 2021. Some were flagged in a September 2021 report on research misconduct by the Chinese government. They join a slew of articles The Anatomical … Continue reading Anatomy journal retracts 13 papers
Although it’s never too late to say sorry, sometimes the apology turns out to be worse than keeping quiet. Consider the case of a group in China, who admitted that their 2020 paper on brain tumors was the work of a paper mill. The article, “LncRNA SNHG16 Promotes Proliferation, Migration, and Invasion of Glioma Cells … Continue reading Here’s what happened when a publisher looked more closely at a paper milled paper
The Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC) has retracted two 2018 papers out of the University of Oxford because of misconduct. Both retraction notices blame first author Alexander Liu, a student in the lab at the time, who disputes the retractions. The studies were part of a larger effort to improve heart imaging … Continue reading Major heart journal retracts two papers from Oxford group for misconduct
A radiology journal has retracted two papers about the fallout from the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan over concerns that the researchers used “ethically inappropriate data” from the people they studied. The articles, which appeared in the Journal of Radiological Protection in 2017, were written by Makoto Miyazaki, of the Department of Radiation Health … Continue reading Fallout over Fukushima fallout papers continues as two are retracted
Nature has retracted a recent commentary after the author complained that he had been misled by the relationship of the publication to a financial sponsor and told to avoid critiquing work from the institution. The journal says it is revisiting its “editorial guidelines and processes” in the wake of the case. Kenneth Witwer, an RNA … Continue reading Author retracts Nature commentary over concerns about section’s sponsorship
The World Health Organization has officially retracted its controversial guidelines on the use of opioid analgesics. The agency’s move applies to two statements, issued in 2011 and 2012. Last June, WHO announced that it was “discontinuing” the guidelines in the wake of a critical report which said the documents were heavily tainted by commercial bias. … Continue reading WHO formally retracts opioid guidelines that came under fire
More than five years after comments appeared on PubPeer about a 2012 paper in PLoS ONE with a raft of problematic images — and a deceased member of the group whom the corresponding author suggests might have been able to support the validity of the data — the journal has retracted the article. The article, … Continue reading Death, retirement, and inability to contact authors leads to retraction of paper first flagged five years ago
A pair of perfume researchers in England have lost a 2019 paper on what makes a scent appealing because, ahem, something about the data didn’t smell quite right. The article was titled “Social success of perfumes,” and it appeared in July in PLOS ONE. There was a press release and a university writeup about the … Continue reading PLOS ONE retracts perfume study when data don’t pass the sniff test