Chronic fatigue syndrome-XMRV researcher scheduled to head to court today, alleging conspiracy

Judy Mikovits
Judy Mikovits

Chronic fatigue syndrome researcher Judy Mikovits was scheduled to head is heading to court today, where a California judge will would decide whether or not to dismiss her lawsuit against fourteen people and two Nevada corporations.

(Note: This story has been updated. See below.)

Among the defendants: the Whittemore Peterson Institute  in Reno, Nevada where Mikovits used to work; the institute’s cofounders, Annette and Harvey Whittemore; a colleague with whom she shares a retracted Science paper; and several members of California and Nevada law enforcement.

The complaint does not check the box next to “Money Demanded in Complaint”, but also lists $750,000 in the associated field:

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In 2006, Mikovits began working for the Whittmores at the WPI; her job was to search for a biological cause of chronic fatigue, a vexing, mysterious disease afflicting their daughter. Part of her research focused on a potential link between chronic fatigue syndrome and a virus known as XMRV. But after others — and Mikovits herself — couldn’t replicate results published in Science and the paper was retracted, she was fired from her position in 2011. Mikovits alleges that Continue reading Chronic fatigue syndrome-XMRV researcher scheduled to head to court today, alleging conspiracy

Nutritionist group pulls position statement on vegetarian diets for “inaccuracies and omissions”

Screen Shot 2015-10-16 at 11.57.38 AMWhat are the specific health benefits to skipping out on meat? We’re not totally sure, after the largest organization for nutrition professionals pulled its 2015 position statement on this issue only weeks after publishing it in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

The “Position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics: Vegetarian Diets” was removed earlier this year for “inaccuracies and omissions critical to the paper” — and the first author wasn’t told what they were. A “major revision” is forthcoming.

Here’s the removal note from the journal for the 2015 version:

Continue reading Nutritionist group pulls position statement on vegetarian diets for “inaccuracies and omissions”

Weekend reads: The end of journals?; Impact Factor for sale; fake peer reviews earn funding bans

booksThis morning, our thoughts are with the people of Paris. The week at Retraction Watch featured the retraction of a paper claiming dramatically higher rates of sexual trauma among men in the military, and a look at whether gender plays a role in peer review. Also: We’re hiring. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: Continue reading Weekend reads: The end of journals?; Impact Factor for sale; fake peer reviews earn funding bans

Heart researcher who faked patient data gets 4th retraction

XLargeThumb.00004872-201512000-00000.CVA heart researcher who fabricated patient records for her studies on the blood pressure medication ramipril has earned her fourth retraction, and more are apparently on the way.

For readers who are new to this case: Things first unraveled for Anna Ahimastos when a subanalysis of a JAMA clinical trial revealed “anomalies,” triggering an investigation. After Ahimastos admitted to fabricating patient data, that JAMA paper and two others — including a small trial in Annals of Internal Medicine — were pulled. A spokesperson for her former employer, Baker IDI Heart & Diabetes Institute, told us last week that they have requested more retractions:

Five papers and one letter are in the process of being retracted.

The Annals and this latest paper are included in the five papers, so we expect to see Continue reading Heart researcher who faked patient data gets 4th retraction

A bacterium may be anti-fungal, but it’s not anti-retraction

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The authors of a paper on an anti-fungal bacterium couldn’t ward off a very common problem: plagiarism. The people credited on the paper, published in Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology, apparently weren’t the original authors, according to the retraction note.

We’re not sure who the original authors are. The retraction note doesn’t elaborate much:

Continue reading A bacterium may be anti-fungal, but it’s not anti-retraction

How does gender influence publishing? A window into one journal

fec_29_10 100Male and female reviewers may rate papers the same way, regardless of whether the authors are male or female — but women are more likely to get the chance to review papers (and get their own papers reviewed) if other women are involved, according to studies of the review process at Functional Ecology.

In their comprehensive study of manuscripts put through the peer review process at the journal from January 2004 through June 2014, the authors found that the average review scores of manuscripts was roughly the same regardless of whether the reviewer — or editor — was male or female.

The authors also scanned papers submitted to the journal between 2010 and 2014 to look at the impact of gender among authors, and also found papers with female authors receive equivalent scores to papers by men: Continue reading How does gender influence publishing? A window into one journal

Psychologist Jens Forster settles case by agreeing to 2 retractions

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Jens Förster

Following questions about the veracity of multiple papers by his former employer, high-profile social psychologist Jens Förster has agreed to retract two papers as part of a deal with the German Society for Psychology (DGPs).

Last year, Förster had a paper retracted at the request of his former employer, the University of Amsterdam (UvA). In May, an investigation commissioned by UvA found that many of his experiments looked “too good to be true,” and eight papers showed strong signs of “low veracity.”

Just two of those papers are acknowledged in the settlement of a case by the DGPs against Förster, who currently works at Ruhr University Bochum. Here’s a translation of a notice from the DGPs from One Hour Translation:

Continue reading Psychologist Jens Forster settles case by agreeing to 2 retractions

When a paper is retracted, so is its previous correction–sometimes

1-s2.0-S0968089612X0018X-cov150hSometimes, the path to correcting the scientific record takes a few turns. In the case of a paper about a new cancer compound, authorship issues led to a correction and, ultimately, a retraction — along with a double-back to retract the earlier correction.

We reported on the first part of the story back in January: A 2011 paper that described a novel compound that could work as a drug for the side effects of chemotherapy was corrected in 2012 to add additional authors. But once the authors realized their supposedly novel compound had actually been synthesized by another author, they decided to retract the paper from Bioorganic and Medicinal Chemistry earlier this year, concluding “these facts made the paper inappropriate and unfaithful.”

Apparently, around the same time, the authors decided to retract the earlier correction, as well:

Continue reading When a paper is retracted, so is its previous correction–sometimes

Genetics paper retracted for using material “without permission and/or proper reference”

Molecular Genetics and GenomicsA review article about a tool used to link genes to traits and behaviors has been retracted for including content “without permission and/or proper reference.”

Corresponding author Ali Masoudi-Nejad at the University of Tehran told us that the retraction occurred mostly because the paper included many figures and tables from other sources, and he didn’t realize they needed to seek permission from both the author and the copyright-holder (ie, the publisher). He added that he doubts he is the only one to make this mistake: Continue reading Genetics paper retracted for using material “without permission and/or proper reference”

BMC retracts paper by scientist who banned use of his software by immigrant-friendly countries

Screen Shot 2015-11-10 at 12.24.42 PMA BioMed Central journal has pulled the paper of a scientist who decided to prohibit countries that are friendly to immigrants from using his software.

Recently, German scientist Gangolf Jobb declared that starting on October 1st scientists working in countries that are, in his opinion, too welcoming to immigrants — including Great Britain, France and Germany — could no longer use his Treefinder software, which creates trees showing potential evolutionary relationships between species. He’d already banned its use by U.S. scientists in February, citing the country’s “imperialism.” Last week, BMC Evolutionary Biology pulled the paper describing the software, noting it now “breaches the journal’s editorial policy on software availability.”

Many scientists have used Jobb’s software: The BMC paper that describes it, “TREEFINDER: a powerful graphical analysis environment for molecular phylogenetics,” has been cited 745 times since it was published in 2004, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

Jobb told Retraction Watch that the software is still available to any scientist willing to travel to non-banned countries, and that he does not care about the retraction: Continue reading BMC retracts paper by scientist who banned use of his software by immigrant-friendly countries