We reported last week on a Portuguese group that lost two papers over mislabeled image files.
Now, we’ve learned that first author Christian Ramos has been fired after speaking to Retraction Watch and offering what seemed like a heartfelt apology (which you can read here). Continue reading Post-doc fired after explaining image problems in paper to Retraction Watch
The week at Retraction Watch began with news of a lawsuit against PubPeer commenters. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
A researcher in Australia who has had several papers retracted following an investigation by her former employer is now facing fraud and other charges.
As The Guardian reports: Continue reading Parkinson’s researcher to appear in court to face fraud charges
Just two months after a PhD student at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals in Saudi Arabia published a paper in August without the knowledge of his co-author, a professor at the university, the paper was retracted by Cellulose.
Here’s the notice for “Corrosion protection of steel sheets by chitosan from shrimp shells at acid pH,” by graduate student Ubong M. Eduok and professor Mazen M. Khaled (well, not really by Khaled): Continue reading Asking for a retraction was “an overbearing response, though I agree that the student screwed up big time”
The former director of the X-ray crystallography lab at the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, faked findings in three papers, according to the Office of Research Integrity.
Two of the three papers by Bijan Ahvazi were published in 2004, and later retracted in 2007, while the other was rejected: Continue reading Former NIH lab director faked findings in three papers: ORI
A dentistry journal has retracted a paper after discovering the research was lifted from dissertation work by two people unrelated to the paper authors.
Here’s the notice for “Treatment of mandibular angle fracture with a 2 mm, 3-dimensional rectangular grid compression miniplates: A prospective clinical study“: Continue reading What was behind an oddly-worded dental retraction? The authors stole someone’s thesis
Elsevier journal Chemosphere may finally retract a paper it learned contained fabricated data in January when a member of the author’s institution requested the paper be retracted.
The paper has been cited at least once since the lies came to light, as we reported earlier this month.
The journal contacted the relevant parties on October 29 with the following email about “Degradation of 2,4-dinitroanisole (DNAN) by metabolic cooperative activity of Pseudomonas sp. strain FK357andRhodococcus imtechensis strain RKJ300,” although no notice has been posted: Continue reading Will journal finally retract fraudulent paper 10 months after an official request?
A mistake in structure identification has sunk a paper by researchers at the NIH, MIT, and Seoul National University in the Cell Press journal Chemistry and Biology.
Here’s the notice for “Peptide-Based Inhibitors of Plk1 Polo-box Domain Containing Mono-anionic Phosphothreonine Esters and Their Pivaloyloxymethyl Prodrugs”: Continue reading Structure error sinks NIH-MIT-SNU peptide paper
Update, 4 p.m. EST, 10/29/14: As a commenter points out, we didn’t quite get this one right. The Boldt paper that has been retracted was not previously retracted for lack of IRB approval. Rather, it was a heretofore unretracted article, from 1996, which German investigators have determined contained faked data. We’ve made edits below using strikethroughs, and have changed the headline to better reflect the content. We apologize for the errors.
We’ve commented before on the fact that we’ve noticed there’s often more to retractions whose stated reason is lack of institutional review board (IRB) approval. We can understand editors’ inclination to act as quickly as possible to issue a retraction, the scientific publishing equivalent of jailing Al Capone for tax evasion. But we appreciate it even more when said editors return to the scene of the crime, as it were, when new important details come out.
Case in point: Anesthesia & Analgesia has amended its retraction of a 2009 1996 study by Joachim Boldt — who with nearly 90 retractions once held the record in that department — based on findings that the data in that paper were fabricated.
The article was titled “Cardiopulmonary bypass priming using a high dose of a balanced hydroxyethyl starch versus an albumin-based priming strategy,” “The effects of albumin versus hydroxyethyl starch solution on cardiorespiratory and circulatory variables in critically ill patient.” had previously been retracted because Boldt had failed to obtain adequate ethics approval for the research. But now comes this, According to the retraction notice from editor in chief Steven Shafer: Continue reading Boldt’s data were fake in 1996 paper
