The week at Retraction Watch featured news that one in 25 papers in a massive screen includes inappropriate image manipulation, and of the eighth and ninth retractions for a neuroscience team. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: Continue reading Weekend reads: Peer review, troubled from the start; how to survive as a whistle-blower
Author dispute retracts paper suggesting NSAIDs curb growth in rats
The corresponding author asked the Journal of Pediatric Orthopaedics to retract an article that found popular pain medicines can curb growth in rats, in light of an unresolved authorship dispute.
The article, “Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs Cause Inhibition of the Growth Plate in Cultured Rat Metatarsal Bones,” details preliminary results that indicate nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) may reduce growth in rat bones in a dose-dependent manner, suggesting caution in treating chronic inflammatory diseases in children. The editor told us the paper was “highly rated” by reviewers and the results were “never in question,” but the senior author asked to pull the paper after failing to resolve a dispute with a researcher who asked to be added as an author.
According to the notice: Continue reading Author dispute retracts paper suggesting NSAIDs curb growth in rats
Poll: Should there be a statute of limitation on retractions?
With PubPeer and other online resources (such as PubMed Commons and our comment section), it’s never been easier for readers to raise public suspicions of published papers. But what should we do when we learn about potential problems in papers that are decades old, and all of the authors are deceased?
That’s the question we’re asking ourselves, after reading “Due process in the Twitter age,” this week’s editorial from Science editor Marcia McNutt.
She presents this compelling scenario:
Continue reading Poll: Should there be a statute of limitation on retractions?
Raw files help fix 2003 figure by heart researcher accused of fraud
A researcher accused of misconduct by an anonymous Japanese blogger has corrected a 2003 paper in Circulation Research, after providing a university investigation with the original source files.
Allegations of fraud have dogged Shokei Kim-Mitsuyama for years, and even caused him to step down from his position as editor in chief at another journal. However, Kim-Mitsuyama and his colleagues call the latest correction a “mistake,” which didn’t affect any of the paper’s conclusions.
We’ve unearthed a total of five publications co-authored by Kim-Mitsuyama that have earned corrections, the latest of which cites an investigation by the university:
Continue reading Raw files help fix 2003 figure by heart researcher accused of fraud
Authors retract, replace highly cited JAMA Psych paper for “pervasive errors”
Authors have retracted a highly cited JAMA Psychiatry study about depression after failing to account for some patient recoveries, among other mistakes.
It’s a somewhat unusual notice — it explains that the paper has been retracted and replaced with a new, corrected version.
The study, which included 452 adults with major depressive disorder, concluded that cognitive therapy plus medication works better to treat depression than pills alone. But after it was published, a reader pointed out that some of the numbers in a table were incorrect. The authors reviewed the data and redid their analysis, and discovered “a number of pervasive errors.”
The notice (termed “notice of retraction and replacement”) explains the consequences of those errors:
Continue reading Authors retract, replace highly cited JAMA Psych paper for “pervasive errors”
Journals retract two heart papers with “nearly identical” abstracts
Journals have retracted two papers after realizing that they contain “nearly identical” abstracts and introductions, published only months apart.
The two retracted papers, along with a third that also contains similar text, all conclude that a certain polymorphism could signal a risk for coronary artery disease among Chinese people, though each paper presents different data. The papers do not have any authors in common; the first authors are all based at different hospitals in China. The editor in chief of one journal told us that some of the reviewers did not use institutional email addresses, which leaves open the possibility that they were fake emails, and the peer-review process was compromised.
Here’s the first retraction notice, for “Fibroblast growth factor receptor 4 polymorphisms and susceptibility to coronary artery disease,” published in DNA and Cell Biology. The notice states the paper contains:
Continue reading Journals retract two heart papers with “nearly identical” abstracts
JACS imaging paper “under editorial review” has been replicated, says author
The author of a paper “under editorial review” at the Journal of the American Chemical Society has told us the results the paper have been replicated, contrary to claims made by a former member of her lab.
What’s more, the author said she has submitted a correction to the paper, which is currently flagged with an expression of concern, to provide uncropped images.
We originally reported on the case in February from the perspective of Roger Wong, a former chemist at Hong Kong University who said he hasn’t been able to replicate the findings out of the lab of Dan Yang, a current chemistry professor at HKU (who is female, despite the fact that “Dan” is frequently used as a male name in English). We unfortunately failed to reach Yang in February because of an email glitch; once we contacted Yang, she told us she does not believe Wong’s side of the story:
Continue reading JACS imaging paper “under editorial review” has been replicated, says author
Singapore investigation leads to another retraction, correction for Harvard research fellow
After an investigation found evidence of misconduct, a biologist has issued a third retraction.
Sudarsanareddy Lokireddy — now a research fellow at Harvard Medical School — “admitted falsification,” a Research Integrity Officer at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore told us in December. According to The Scientist, another journal has also published a correction that the authors had requested earlier.
The newly retracted paper is “Myostatin is a novel tumoral factor that induces cancer cachexia,” published in Biochemical Journal and cited 40 times, according to Thomson Reuters Web of Science. Here’s the retraction note:
NEJM quickly corrects disclosure statement, errors in diabetes paper
After publishing a paper about neuropathy in diabetic patients last week, The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) immediately corrected it after editors learned of errors and some missing disclosures within the article.
The notice explains that the sole author of the paper, “Diabetic Sensory and Motor Neuropathy,” reported incorrect doses for several medications, and received royalties for the tool to measure quality of life used in the paper. The author told us all the declarations were “discussed in detail” between him and the journal, and both parties agreed to the final decision.
Let’s take a look at the lengthy correction notice — what some of our readers might call a “mega-correction:” Continue reading NEJM quickly corrects disclosure statement, errors in diabetes paper
Two more retractions bring total to 9 for neuroscience duo
After the first author admitted to fraud, his colleagues have retracted a 2013 paper in the Journal of Neuroscience, as well as a 2015 book chapter about working memory.
The retractions come as part of a backstory of pulled papers authored by psychologist Edward Awh and his former graduate student David Anderson when he was based at the University of Oregon in Eugene. The pair retracted four papers last year after Anderson admitted to misconduct during an investigation by the U.S. Office of Research Integrity (and spoke to us about it last July). This led Awh — now based at the University of Chicago in Illinois — to take a second look at the other publications he’d co-authored with Anderson; earlier this year, Awh retracted two others, and informed us more would be coming, including the two most recent publications.
First, let’s take a look at the retraction note for the Journal of Neuroscience paper, about remembered items and task performance: Continue reading Two more retractions bring total to 9 for neuroscience duo