This week at Retraction Watch featured seven retractions in a long-running case involving cancer research, as well as the retraction of a paper claiming a link between a vaccine and behavioral issues. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
Ben Goldacre has been a busy man. In the last six weeks, the author and medical doctor’s Compare Project has evaluated 67 clinical trials published in the top five medical journals, looking for any “switched outcomes,” meaning the authors didn’t report something they said they would, or included additional outcomes in the published paper, with … Continue reading Top journals give mixed response to learning published trials didn’t proceed as planned
High-profile social psychologist Jens Förster has earned two retractions following an investigation by his former workplace. He agreed to the retractions as part of a settlement with the German Society for Psychology (DGPs). The papers are two of eight that were found to contain “strong statistical evidence for low veracity.” According to the report from an expert panel convened at … Continue reading Psychologist Jens Förster earns second and third retractions as part of settlement
Stefan Franzen doesn’t give up. Ten years ago, he began to suspect the data behind his colleagues’ research about using RNA to make palladium nanoparticles, a potentially valuable tool that ended up as a Science paper. Recently, the National Science Foundation (NSF) decided to cut off funding for Bruce Eaton and Dan Feldheim — currently at the University of … Continue reading After 10 years, a whistleblower is vindicated. Here’s why he kept going.
A chemist is suing the University of Texas a second time in an effort to keep the PhD she earned in 2008. In 2014, school officials revoked Suvi Orr‘s degree after finding it was based, in part, on falsified data. Some of the data were also included in a paper in Organic Letters that was retracted in 2011 after some steps … Continue reading Chemist sues University of Texas (again) to keep PhD
Whenever we see someone step forward and admit their mistakes, along with a clear explanation so others can avoid the same, we applaud them. Today, our digital hands are clapping for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), whose Marketplace has issued a lengthy explanation for why they reported incorrect results from tests of popular vitamins and … Continue reading “We gave you the wrong information.” An apology from the CBC
A paper on how plants respond to bacteria has an invader of its own — data manipulation. The “irregularities and inappropriate data manipulation” were found in a figure produced by the first author, Ching-Wei Chen, whose LinkedIn page lists him as a student at the National Taiwan University. The authors were unable to replicate the results in the … Continue reading Paper on plant immunity can’t fight off manipulation
Authors are retracting a 2012 paper on cholesterol metabolism in zebrafish after realizing it included a case of mistaken identity in a DNA sequence crucial to some aspects of the experiment. A postdoc misidentified the plasmid in question after failing to fully sequence it before including it in the experiment. A technician in the lab found … Continue reading Misidentified DNA leads authors to retract zebrafish cholesterol paper
A journal has banned three researchers after an investigation confirmed that a “significant portion” of the text of their paper on screening for urinary tract infections had been plagiarized. The researchers Sreenivasan Srirangaraj, Arunava Kali and MV Pravin Charles, who are all based in India, won’t be allowed to publish in Australasian Medical Journal in the future, according to the … Continue reading Journal bans authors following investigation confirming plagiarism
Researchers in Germany have retracted their 2011 article in the Journal of Bacteriology after another lab pointed out a fatal error in the paper. The article, “Escherichia coli Exports Cyclic AMP via TolC,” came from a group at Tübingen University led by Klaus Hantke. The paper focuses on the crucial role of the membrane channel … Continue reading E. coli gene paper falls to mistaken mutation