New York Times pushes for more focus, funding on research misconduct

nytThe New York Times has an editorial today with which we wholeheartedly agree: The newspaper is calling on scientists — and even the government — to pay more attention to misconduct in research. (It also doesn’t hurt that the paper mentions us.)

The proximate cause of the editorial, titled “Scientists Who Cheat,” is the retraction by Science of the gay marriage study by Michael LaCour, which we — and the Times, among others — have covered extensively.

As the editorial rightly notes, the pressures to publish are pushing some researchers to make up data. (Monday’s paper also carries a page 1 article about the dangers of splashy science that’s worth reading.) Continue reading New York Times pushes for more focus, funding on research misconduct

Science pulls advice post suggesting student “put up with” advisor looking down her shirt

scienceThe careers site of Science magazine has pulled an advice column posted today from virologist Alice Huang, who suggested a postdoc tolerate an advisor’s roving eye.

In the retraction note, Science Careers apologizes for publishing the post, even if it was for just a few hours. “We regret that the article had not undergone proper editorial review prior to posting.”

Luckily, we found a web archive, courtesy of Kelly Hills (@rocza).

Here’s the question, from a reader whom we presume to be female:

Continue reading Science pulls advice post suggesting student “put up with” advisor looking down her shirt

Sub-optimal: Industrial optimization paper crushed by author’s “serious error of judgment”

chemo intell lab systemsChemometrics and Intelligent Laboratory Systems, an Elsevier publication, has retracted a 2014 paper by researchers in China and the United Kingdom for data misuse and authorship issues.

The article, “Optimization of fluidized bed spray granulation process based on a multiphase hybrid model,” was purportedly written by Dapeng Niu, of the College of Information Science and Engineering at Northeastern University, in Shenyang, China, Ming Li, of De Montfort University, in Leicester, England, and Fuli Wang, a vice-president at Northeastern.

But Niu apparently didn’t perform any experiments, lifted the data from other sources, and published the paper without his co-authors’ okay.

Here’s more from the retraction notice: Continue reading Sub-optimal: Industrial optimization paper crushed by author’s “serious error of judgment”

The “results should not be published:” Company confidentiality agreement squashes two insecticide papers

AMTWest Virginia University biologists have retracted two papers on insecticides for fruit pests due to a confidentiality agreement with a chemical manufacturer stating that the “results should not be published.”

The retracted 2014 articles in Arthropod Management Tests, “Control of Internal Lepidoptera and other insect pests in apple, 2013” and “Control of Oriental Fruit Moth and other insect pests in peach, 2013,” were written by WVU entomologist Daniel Frank and plant pathologist Alan Biggs.

We’ve been unable to find abstracts for the papers, but here is a sister paper Frank and Biggs published in 2012,“Control of Internal Lepidoptera and other insect pests in apple, 2012,” evaluating various insecticides for the control of internal lepidoptera on an experimental plot of Red Delicious apple trees in West Virginia.

Here’s the to-the-point retraction note, which is identical for each paper: Continue reading The “results should not be published:” Company confidentiality agreement squashes two insecticide papers

Weekend reads: Gay canvassing study saga continues; Elsevier policy sparks concern; a string of scandals

booksAs might have been expected, continuing developments in the Michael LaCour gay canvassing study retraction have drowned out coverage of stories that ordinarily might capture a lot of attention, such as fake case reports making their way into CDC data. A sampling:

But just like last week, there was plenty happening elsewhere: Continue reading Weekend reads: Gay canvassing study saga continues; Elsevier policy sparks concern; a string of scandals

Data “were destroyed due to privacy/confidentiality requirements,” says co-author of retracted gay canvassing study

science coverAs promised, Michael LaCour, the co-author of the now-retracted Science paper on gay canvassing, has posted a detailed response to the allegations against him.

In the 23-page document — available here — LaCour claims to

introduce evidence uncovering discrepancies between the timeline of events presented in Broockman et al. (2015) and the actual timeline of events and disclosure.

He also says that the graduate students who critiqued his work failed to follow the correct sampling procedure and chose an incorrect variable in what LaCour calls “a curious and possibly intentional ‘error.'” He writes: Continue reading Data “were destroyed due to privacy/confidentiality requirements,” says co-author of retracted gay canvassing study

Oregon public health employee faked 56 infection case reports: ORI

downloadA former employee in the public health division of the Oregon Health Authority committed misconduct in 56 case reports about Clostridium difficile infections in Klamath County, Oregon, as well as in a manuscript submitted to JAMA Internal Medicine and a published report in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report in March, 2012.

Ryan Asherin, previously a Surveillance Officer and Principal Investigator at the OHA, was a busy man. According to the details from a report by the U.S. Office of Research Integrity, Asherin:

Continue reading Oregon public health employee faked 56 infection case reports: ORI

Brain paper retracted after university report finds “substantial data misrepresentation”

jneurosci_coverThe Journal of Neuroscience is retracting a 2012 paper on how estrogen produced in the brain shapes the auditory system on the basis of “a report from Northwestern University that describes substantial data misrepresentation” in the paper.

The paper, “Mechanistic Basis and Functional Roles of Long-Term Plasticity in Auditory Neurons Induced by a Brain-Generated Estrogen,” is, according to PubMed, the last one published by its last (and corresponding) author Raphael Pinaud, and first author Liisa Tremere, who were both at Northwestern University at the time. Before his position at Northwestern, Pinaud held positions at the University of Oklahoma and the University of Rochester.

Pinaud and Tremere jointly published a handful of papers on the role of estrogen in the auditory system of the brain starting in 2009, some of which are co-authored by two of the other researchers on the current paper, which has been cited 8 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

Here’s the retraction notice:

Continue reading Brain paper retracted after university report finds “substantial data misrepresentation”

Chocolate-diet study publisher claims paper was actually rejected, only live “for some hours.” Email, however, says…

bohannon
John — aka “Johannes” — Bohannon

Following revelations in io9.com this week from John Bohannon about how he successfully “created” health news by conducting a flawed trial of the health benefits of chocolate and gaming the data to produce statistically significant results, the journal that ultimately published the findings is now claiming the paper wasn’t accepted.

Trouble is, we’ve got correspondence from Bohannon showing that’s false. Here’s a quote from an email from publisher Carlos Vazquez to which Bohannon responded on March 2:

Continue reading Chocolate-diet study publisher claims paper was actually rejected, only live “for some hours.” Email, however, says…

Science retracts troubled gay canvassing study against LaCour’s objections

science coverFollowing revelations of data issues and other problems (which crashed our server last week), Science is retracting a paper claiming that short conversations could change people’s minds on same-sex marriage.

The co-author who admitted to faking the data “does not agree” to the retraction, according to Science. Here’s more from the note: Continue reading Science retracts troubled gay canvassing study against LaCour’s objections