A paper about a protein being used — unapproved by health agencies — to treat diseases including cancer and autism has been retracted.
Here’s the notice from the International Journal of Cancer about a 2007 paper purporting to show that the substance, GcMAF, is useful against breast cancer: Continue reading Paper about widely touted but unapproved “cure” for cancer, autism retracted
A group of researchers in China has lost their paper on liver cancer after the first author admitted to duplication, also known, inelegantly, as self-plagiarism.
The paper, “Glycyrrhetinic acid-modified chitosan nanoparticles enhanced the effect of 5-fluorouracil in murine liver cancer model via regulatory T-cells,” appeared in the July 2013 issue of the Journal of Drug Design, Development and Therapy, a Dove Press title.
According to the abstract: Continue reading “Lack of experience and understanding” forces duplication retractions of liver cancer paper
In what seems to be an example of researchers swiftly and transparently correcting the literature, and acknowledging errors, a pair of scientists have retracted a 2013 paper from Nature.
Here’s the retraction notice for “Genomic organization of human transcription initiation complexes,” by Bryan Venters and Frank Pugh: Continue reading Incorrect analysis leads to Nature’s sixth retraction in 2014
A Democratic senator from Montana, John Walsh, is the latest high-profile politician to face plagiarism charges.
The New York Times reports:
…one of the highest-profile credentials of Mr. Walsh’s 33-year military career appears to have been improperly attained. An examination of the final paper required for Mr. Walsh’s master’s degree from the United States Army War College indicates the senator appropriated at least a quarter of his thesis on American Middle East policy from other authors’ works, with no attribution.
In an infographic, the Times lays out the overlapping passages: Continue reading U.S. senator appears to have plagiarized his master’s thesis
A researcher who admitted in 2012 to “intentional and systematic manipulation” of data and had two papers retracted has been banned from funding by the German Research Foundation (DFG).
Dennis Rottländer, who will also be returning prize money he was awarded for the research, worked in Uta C. Hoppe’s lab at the University of Cologne. Hoppe, now at University Hospital Salzburg, remains under investigation, according to a statement from the DFG.
Excerpt: Continue reading Cardiology researcher who admitted to fraud earns four-year funding ban
This one seems like an honest mistake: a paper on dietary supplements during pregnancy has been retracted based on an error in data recording.
In the BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth paper, “Folic acid supplementation, dietary folate intake during pregnancy and risk for spontaneous preterm delivery: a prospective observational cohort study,” women for whom the researchers had no data on folic acid supplementation were classified as taking no supplements. Despite the error, the authors claim the overall conclusion remains the same: taking folic acid supplements didn’t protect women from preterm deliveries.
Here’s the retraction notice: Continue reading Patient mix-up sinks prenatal supplement paper
After earning an erratum shortly after publication in 2009, a paper in Applied Physics Letters has now been retracted for the “regrettable mistake” of duplicating an earlier paper by the researchers.
Here’s the notice for “Broadband and omnidirectional antireflection from conductive indium-tin-oxide nanocolumns prepared by glancing-angle deposition with nitrogen:” Continue reading Duplication earns retraction for nanomaterials paper that had already been corrected
After typing up 96 citations, researchers from the National Institute for Digestive Diseases, I.R.C.C.S. “S. de Bellis,” in Bari, Italy, apparently ran out of steam for the last five, earning themselves a retraction for plagiarism in a literature review of the effects of probiotics on intestinal cancer.
Here’s the notice for “Intestinal Microbiota, Probiotics and Human Gastrointestinal Cancers,” from the Journal of Gastrointestinal Cancer: Continue reading Yogurt to be kidding me: Five articles plagiarized in one retracted paper
The Bentley University accounting professor whose retraction we first reported on in November 2012 fabricated the data behind two papers, a university investigation has concluded.
James E. Hunton, who resigned in December 2012: Continue reading Accounting professor faked data for two studies, destroyed evidence: University report
A scientific publishing gadfly who was banned earlier this year from an Elsevier journal for “personal attacks and threats” has had a paper rejected by a Springer journal after he called for the editor’s resignation because of alleged incompetence.
As detailed in a comment left at Retraction Watch, Jaime A. Teixeira da Silva submitted a manuscript titled “One Conjunction, a World of Ethical Difference: How Elsevier, the ICMJE and Neurology Define Authorship” to Science and Engineering Ethics on November 11, 2012. As of last week, despite a number of messages sent to editors of the journal, he had not had a decision on the manuscript.
As a result, on July 14 of this year, Teixeira da Silva sent this letter to journal editor Raymond Spier and to Stephanie Bird, an editorial board member assigned to the manuscript: Continue reading Publishing gadfly demands journal editor’s resignation, then has “fairly incomprehensible” paper rejected