The authors of two spectroscopy papers in Royal Society of Chemistry journals have retracted them.
Here’s the notice for “Determination of silk fibroin secondary structure by terahertz time domain spectroscopy” (free, but requires sign-in) in Analytical Methods, which is almost identical to this notice in Analyst: Continue reading Authors retract two spectroscopy papers when follow-up results don’t match
A math paper in the Journal of Inequalities and Applications has been retracted after it was discovered the authors had included a student’s work without acknowledging her.
One of the authors, however, told us it was an honest mistake, and that the editor pushed for retraction instead of correction “to protect this journal and its impact factor.”
Here’s the notice for “On the Kirchhoff matrix, a new Kirchhoff index and the Kirchhoff energy”: Continue reading Student denied credit, math article retracted
A paper on photonic quantum walks has been retracted over a theoretical disagreement.
The notice is also paywalled, which the editorial director has assured us is a mistake that is being corrected.
We sent the COPE guidelines on retraction to the American Physical Society, which publishes Physical Review Letters. Editorial director Dan Kulp told us the paywall was the unintentional consequence of a web redesign, and that they are in the process of restoring public access to “all Errata-types, including Retractions.”
Here’s the rest of his statement: Continue reading Quantum physics paper pulled for “serious theoretical errors,” notice accidentally paywalled
This one’s not a retraction, but rather a back and forth of letters to the editor concerning accusations of plagiarism.
Dentists Bryan and Paul Jacobs, a father and son team, wrote a paper describing a novel surgical technique in March 2013. In October 2013, several Croatian dentists published their own paper using the technique.
A year later, the story has gotten a little more interesting. The November issue of the Journal of Oral and Mixillofacial Surgery, which published the second article, has two letters. One, from the Jacobses, accuses the Croatian authors of plagiarism. The second is a response from author Dragana Gabrić Pandurić, claiming “our real intention was to emphasize, not plagiarize, their work.”
Here’s the letter from Bryan and Paul Jacobs (paywalled): Continue reading “Our real intention was to emphasize, not plagiarize”
Last month, we reported that a Wayne State University cancer researcher had threatened legal action involving post-publication peer review site PubPeer, claiming that he had lost a job offer from the University of Mississippi because of comments on the site.
Fazlul Sarkar — who has received $12.8 million in NIH funding and has been an investigator on five clinical trials — has now filed suit against PubPeer’s anonymous commenters, and has demanded that PubPeer release their names and identifying information. The complaint, filed by attorney Nicholas Roumel in Michigan’s Wayne County Circuit Court and which we’ve made available here, details more of the history of the case and of course describes the legal strategy, which we’ll describe below. Continue reading Scientist sues PubPeer commenters, subpoenas site for names
The week at Retraction Watch began with the retraction of a paper touted by Dr. Oz. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
A cardiovascular group has retracted a conference proceeding abstract, because it too closely resembled a paper they published prior to the conference.
The last author is baffled as to why the journal couldn’t have made that call before they published the abstract.
Here’s the notice for “Increased beta-adrenergic inotropy in ventricular myocardium from Trpm4 knockout mice”: Continue reading Heart paper will go on, but only in the first of two journals it was published in
This one’s a real mess.
In June, a paper in Tumor Biology was retracted for at least four reasons, including bad data and hiding a trial sponsor (Merck). Some people who contributed work weren’t cited; at least one author had no idea his name would be on it. And that’s just what they tell us in the notice.
Here’s the notice for “Neutropenia and invasive fungal infection in patients with hematological malignancies treated with chemotherapy: a multicenter, prospective, non-interventional study in China:” Continue reading Failure to disclose drug company sponsor among litany of reasons for cancer retraction
PubPeer leads the way again: The authors of a paper about Parkinson’s disease in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) have retracted it, several months after a commenter highlighted the exact issue that led to the article’s demise.
The paper, originally published in September 2013, was called into question by a commenter on PubPeer in July 2014, who identified two of the paper’s figures as duplications: Continue reading Authors retract PNAS paper questioned on PubPeer after original films can’t be found
On Monday, we were first to report that a study of green coffee bean extract for weight loss touted on the Dr. Oz Show had been retracted.
That story has been widely picked up by the media, including The Washington Post, which yesterday reported that the show had posted a statement about the development: Continue reading Dr. Oz: Following green coffee bean diet retraction, site scrubbed, “further study is needed”