The week at Retraction Watch featured a particularly misleading retraction notice, and a university stripping a graduate of her PhD for misconduct. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: Continue reading Weekend reads: Papers de-emphasized for funding; reproducibility revolution; reining in fraud in China
Stem cell researcher who sued Harvard, Brigham & Women’s is leaving his post
Piero Anversa‘s departure follows the dismissal of his suit last summer. Anversa filed the suit with colleague Annarosa Leri, claiming that an investigation into their work damaged their reputations:
they lost a multimillion-dollar offer to purchase their company, Autologous/Progenital; and both Plaintiffs have had possible employment offers at several institutions postponed.
Anversa’s lawyer, Tracey Miner, confirmed that he was moving:
Continue reading Stem cell researcher who sued Harvard, Brigham & Women’s is leaving his post
Yale doc loses 2 HuffPo blog posts after secretly promoting his novel
The Huffington Post has retracted two blog posts by prominent Yale nutritionist David Katz after learning he had posted incredibly favorable reviews of a new novel — and not revealed that he had written the novel himself, under a pseudonym.
There’s no doubt Katz is a prolific writer — in addition to a couple hundred scientific articles and textbook chapters, Katz regularly blogs for the Huffington Post. He’s also the author of a novel, reVision, under the pen name Samhu Iyyam. Last year, Katz wrote a pair of incredibly favorable reviews of reVision on The Huffington Post that implied he had discovered the novel as a reader. The Huffington Post has taken them down, as blogger Peter Heimlich — yes, related to the maneuver — reported earlier this week. According to Heimlich, a 5-star Amazon review of “Iyyam’s” book, written by Katz, has also been removed.
In the reviews, there’s no hint that Katz is the author. In the first column, “Do We Need to Kill Our Heroes?,” published in January, Katz notes he was “delighted to find just such reflections [on that question] in my new favorite book, reVision.” Here’s the retraction note, of sorts, that appears on Huff Po in the column’s place:
Continue reading Yale doc loses 2 HuffPo blog posts after secretly promoting his novel
Irish university strips student of PhD following investigation
Maynooth University has revoked a former student’s PhD following an investigation into the circumstances that led to two previous retractions in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.
During the investigation, Aisha Qasim Butt admitted to some misconduct in the two papers and the research that made up her PhD, according to a university statement (which you can read in full here): Continue reading Irish university strips student of PhD following investigation
Can journals get hijacked? Apparently, yes
Did you recently log onto your favorite journal’s website and see this? (For anyone who doesn’t want to bother clicking, it’s the video from Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.”) If so, your favorite journal was hijacked.
In today’s issue of Science, John Bohannon (who recently published a bogus study about the benefits of chocolate) explains how easy it is to take over a journal’s website — so easy, in fact, that he did it himself. And he’s not the only one, he reports: Continue reading Can journals get hijacked? Apparently, yes
BMJ Case Reports pulled three dental papers for plagiarism
We’ve stumbled upon a trio of retractions published in August, 2013 from BMJ Case Reports for “redundant publication” to a group of researchers based in India.
Editors found that the reports, which were published between 2012 and 2013, had considerable “overlaps” with articles that had been published in other journals. Although one of the retracted authors was also an author on one of the overlapping articles, the rest of the authors have no obvious connection to the previous work.
The authors of the three retracted papers are based at the Modern Dental College and Research Centre in India.
One retracted paper, “A rare occurrence of peripheral ossifying fibroma in the first decade of life and its management,” described the case of a 10 year-old girl with a lesion growing on her gums. The notice reads:
Continue reading BMJ Case Reports pulled three dental papers for plagiarism
Mol bio paper pulled by PLOS following investigation into figures
PLOS Biology has retracted a paper about the molecular details of β-catenin expression following an investigation by the first author’s institution in Italy.
The investigation, by the Istituto Nazionale per la Ricerca sul Cancro, found that there were multiple “figure anomalies.” According to the note:
An explanation of inadvertent error was given for some of the issues identified, while for two issues, a satisfactory explanation could not be provided.
First author Roberto Gherzi says none of his co-authors helped prepare the figures. The authors maintain that the conclusions are unaffected, but that assurance wasn’t enough for the journal. Here’s more from the lengthy retraction note, which provides some backstory on the “serious concerns” regarding the data:
Continue reading Mol bio paper pulled by PLOS following investigation into figures
MD Anderson researcher Aggarwal up to six corrections
A highly cited cancer researcher at MD Anderson has notched three major corrections, all associated with problems in figures. One note cites “human error” as the cause.
Bharat Aggarwal is the last author on all three papers. He is now up to six corrections, two unexplained withdrawals, and two Expressions of Concern. He’s also threatened to sue us in the past, and has told us that his institution has been looking into his work.
Only one note specifies that the correction does not affect the paper’s conclusions.
First up: “Inhibition of growth and survival of human head and neck squamous cell carcinoma cells by curcumin via modulation of nuclear factor-κB signaling,” published in the International Journal of Cancer and cited 168 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. The issues span two figures, according to the erratum note:
Continue reading MD Anderson researcher Aggarwal up to six corrections
Case report on cyst surgery sliced by journal for plagiarism
A case report that detailed the removal of a cyst from the side of a young woman’s face has been retracted for plagiarizing text from a similar case report published two years earlier.
Contemporary Clinical Dentistry posted the notice on July 31. Parts of the 2014 report were “directly copied” from a report published in 2012 by the Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology. Neither of the reports share authors in common.
The notice reads:
Continue reading Case report on cyst surgery sliced by journal for plagiarism
Heart researcher gets 3rd retraction for copying images of rat hearts
When two papers include the same images of rat hearts, one of those papers gets retracted.
The papers share a corresponding author, Zhi-Qing Zhao of Mercer University School of Medicine in Savannah, Georgia. This marks his third retraction; we reported on two others earlier this year.
The papers examine the effect of curcumin, which has antinflammatory properties (in addition to giving the spice turmeric its yellow color). The retracted paper, “Dual ACE-inhibition and angiotensin II AT1 receptor antagonism with curcumin attenuate maladaptive cardiac repair and improve ventricular systolic function after myocardial infarctionin rat heart,” was published in the January 5, 2015 issue of the European Journal of Pharmacology, and has zero citations, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. It shares multiple figures with another 2012 paper, “Curcumin promotes cardiac repair and ameliorates cardiac dysfunction following myocardial infarction,” published in the British Journal of Pharmacology, which has not been retracted. The BJP paper has been cited 18 times.
Here’s the retraction note for the EJP paper:
Continue reading Heart researcher gets 3rd retraction for copying images of rat hearts