The Journal of Advanced Nursing has retracted a 2006 paper by a group of authors in Hong Kong who lifted much of the text from a previous article of theirs in a competing publication.
The article, “Osteoporosis prevention education programme for women,” came from Moon Fai Chan and C.Y. Ko in the School of Nursing at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Per the abstract:
Continue reading “Major overlap” forces retraction of osteoporosis paper
Matthew Whitaker at Arizona State University is revising a textbook about modern African-American history after it was found to contain “unattributed and poorly paraphrased material,” according to a statement from the author.
The revised version of the book Peace Be Still: Modern Black America from World War II to Barack Obama will include “a statement of apology and admission of error.”
As a result, Whitaker has been demoted to Associate Professor (from full Professor), costing him $20,000 per year in salary and stipend, according to The Arizona Republic. His previous salary was $163,530.
In addition,
Evidence of poorly treated lab animals has led researchers to retract a 2014 article in Veterinary Pathology that explored the neurological effects of dehydration in squirrel monkeys.
The study was pulled after Frederick Wang, the former director of the New England Primate Research Center, unveiled reports of a dozen squirrel monkeys that were found dehydrated and dead in their cages or euthanized between 1999 and 2011.
Wang told the Boston Globe in April that “human error” and “inadequate animal care” might have compromised the results of the study:
Continue reading Retraction of monkey paper linked to problems at shuttered research institute
The Journal of Clinical Investigation has issued a lengthy correction to a paper about the role of the immune system in the progression and treatment response of multiple myeloma.
The correction changes details from the name of an author to figure legends, and adds entire supplemental figures.
Shortly after the paper’s publication on April 20th, commenters on PubPeer pointed out duplications in multiple figure panels.
Last month, the journal issued an extensive correction note for “Immunosurveillance and therapy of multiple myeloma are CD226 dependent,” which, in part, tries to explain the multiple duplications.
It starts out noting a typo:
Continue reading JCI issues mega-correction for multiple myeloma paper
This week at Retraction Watch featured a look at the nuances of replication efforts, aka “the replication paradox,” as well as yet another story of fake peer reviews, this time at Hindawi. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: Continue reading Weekend reads: California universities battle in court for research dollars; fake conferences; fake impact factors
High-profile plant biologist Olivier Voinnet has been suspended for two years from the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) following the results of two investigations that revealed a number of issues in his publication record.
An investigation at ETH Zurich found that the scientist “breached his duty of care in the handling of figures as well as in his supervisory duties as a research director.”
Another investigation at CNRS, where Voinnet also works as a researcher, also found “the existence of deliberate chart/diagram manipulations” — while not “fabrication,” these breaches “amount to scientific misconduct,” according to a press release about the report.
The ETH committee uncovered multiple errors, from the “mere confusion of correct and incorrect figures” to “the ‘beautification’ of figures,” but said that it was not scientific misconduct, according to ETH guidelines:
Here’s a case of retraction being a hammer when a scalpel might have been better.
The authors of a 2011 paper in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology looking at transmission of hepatitis C in a former leper colony in Japan have retracted the article because an ethics panel in that country objected to the scientists’ use of fetal tissue.
The article involves a controversial aspect of modern Japanese history — the country’s efforts to eradicate leprosy, or Hansen’s disease, by isolating patients in a string of state-run sanatoriums. The policy was eventually realized to be unnecessary and ruled unconstitutional in 2001, triggering a wave of apologies to patients and their families.
Continue reading Ethics dispute forces retraction of paper on Hep C in Japanese leper colony
Biophysicists in India have retracted two crystallography papers describing protein binding sites following “concerns,” according to one retraction note.
The last author on both papers, however, told us he believed the retractions were the result of “trivial errors.” Although one journal praised him in its retraction note for his “positive engagement,” he said the process left him feeling “disgusted.”
One paper, “Structural Studies on Molecular Interactions between Camel Peptidoglycan Recognition Protein, CPGRP-S, and Peptidoglycan Moieties N-Acetylglucosamine and N-Acetylmuramic Acid,” was withdrawn from the Journal of Biological Chemistry in August 2014.
The second, “Mode of binding of the antithyroid drug propylthiouracil to mammalian haem peroxidases,” was retracted from Acta Crystallographica Section F this month. Here’s the retraction notice: Continue reading Two crystallography papers break apart for “trivial errors,” says author
A journal has issued a “notice of redundant publication” for a paper that used virtual reality to understand arousal patterns in child molesters — the result of “an unfortunate sequence of personal events relating to the first author.”
The study, “Using immersive virtual reality and ecological psychology to probe into child molesters’ phenomenology,” was originally published online in 2011 and printed in 2013.
The Journal of Sexual Aggression announced the “notice of redundant publication” after the editors discovered the article contained “content of which much was included in an article published between the first online publication date of the original article and the final publication”. The article shares many of the same co-authors, and has since been retracted.
Patrice Renaud, the first author and a lecturer at the University of Quebec in Outaouais, took responsibility for the additional publications. In an email to Retraction Watch, Renaud said that the issues arose because of a family medical emergency:
Continue reading Psych journal axes study of child molesters
Although we nearly always stick to covering the scientific literature, we sometimes write about cases in other media that shed light on how different outlets correct the record. This is one of those times.
The New York Times issued an editor’s note and correction last week to a June 26 article about Happy the elephant, who some argue is suffering because she lives isolated from the other elephants at the Bronx Zoo.
After publication, however, the paper made a major discovery about the writer of the piece, Tracy Tullis: She had signed an online petition to move Happy to an elephant sanctuary. As they write in the editor’s note: Continue reading New York Times says it “would not have assigned” elephant article to writer had they known of conflict