Danish committee rejects much of Klarlund Pedersen’s appeal of misconduct findings

Klarlund Pedersen
Klarlund Pedersen

The Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty (DCSD, Danish acronym UVVU) has partially reversed a December 2013 finding of misconduct against a scientist in Denmark, but has upheld most of its ruling.

Bente Klarlund Pedersen, whose case was tied up with that of Milena Penkowa, another scientist in Denmark found guilty of misconduct, committed misconduct in four of 12 articles examined, not six, the DCSD said in a statement last week.

Here’s the English summary (the DCSD does not name scientists under investigation publicly, but Pedersen has confirmed this is about her): Continue reading Danish committee rejects much of Klarlund Pedersen’s appeal of misconduct findings

Weekend reads: DIY peer review, wildly exaggerated breakthroughs, and how to commit fraud without being caught

booksAnother busy week at Retraction Watch. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: Continue reading Weekend reads: DIY peer review, wildly exaggerated breakthroughs, and how to commit fraud without being caught

Australian university to repay $275K grant because of “misleading and incorrect” information

Zee Upton, via QUT
Zee Upton, via QUT

Courtesy of The Australian, we have an update on a story we first covered in late 2012.

As we reported then:

A contested retraction in Stem Cells and Development has left the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) graduate student who fought for it in limbo, uncertain if he will earn his PhD. And many of those who didn’t want the paper retracted have a significant financial interest in a company whose work was promoted by the research — despite any lack of disclosure in the now-retracted paper.

QUT refused to give the student, Luke Cormack, access to an evaluation of the data in question, but also said that it welcomed an independent probe into a related $275,000 grant.

That probe is now complete, reports The Australian’s Julie Hare, and the QUT will be paying the grant back: Continue reading Australian university to repay $275K grant because of “misleading and incorrect” information

Second retraction appears for former University of Florida ob-gyn subject to ORI probe

University of Florida
Chegini, via University of Florida

Nasser Chegini, an ob-gyn formerly on the faculty at the University of Florida who has been the subject of an Office of Research Integrity (ORI) inquiry for several years, has a second retraction.

Chegini is suspected of having used bogus data in some of his work — research backed in part by some $4 million in federal funding.

The new retraction involves a 2008 paper in Reproductive Sciences on which Chegini was senior author. Here’s the notice: Continue reading Second retraction appears for former University of Florida ob-gyn subject to ORI probe

Déjà vu: Double pub in the same issue earns a retraction

biomedchromAlways do a careful reading of your galleys, editors.

We imagine readers of Biomedical Chromatography’s special issue, “Reminiscences of Chang Kee Lim,” did some flipping back and forth when they found the same paper published twice.

Here’s the resulting notice for “Determination of 4-hydroxy-2-nonenal in serum by high-performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection after pre-column derivatization using 4-(N,N-dimethylaminosulfonyl)-7-hydrazino-2,1,3-benzoxadiazole”:  Continue reading Déjà vu: Double pub in the same issue earns a retraction

Cancer researcher has correction upgraded to retraction

mol endo coverRakesh Kumar, a researcher with six recent corrections and one retraction, has had one of those corrections upgraded to a retraction.

Here’s the unhelpful notice, from Molecular Endocrinology: Continue reading Cancer researcher has correction upgraded to retraction

Journal takes down autism-vaccine paper pending investigation

translational neurodegenerationAn article purporting to find that black children are at substantially increased risk for autism after early exposure to the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine has been shelved.

Although we don’t know if the events are related, the move comes amid claims that a CDC whistleblower has accused health officials of suppressing information about the link.

Not surprisingly, the prospect that the CDC has been sitting on evidence of an autism-vaccine connection for more than a decade has inflamed the community of activists wrongly convinced that such a link exists.

The paper, “Measles-mumps-rubella vaccination timing and autism among young african american boys: a reanalysis of CDC data,” was written by Brian Hooker, an engineer-turned-biologist and an active member of that community. It was submitted in April, accepted on August 5, and published on August 8.

Translational Neurodegeneration, which published the article earlier this month, has now removed it and posted the following notice: Continue reading Journal takes down autism-vaccine paper pending investigation

This retraction has teeth: Journal changes publication policy after discovering misconduct

Screen Shot 2014-08-26 at 10.43.29 AMThe Indian Society of Periodontology has changed their editorial policy as the result of an author who had “neither taken adequate permission from nor given due acknowledgement to all authors concerned.”

Now, any authors will be required to sign a contract acknowledging accountability for the content of the submitted paper, as well as be able to state the specific work contributed by each author.

Here’s the notice from the Journal of the Indian Society of Periodontology: Continue reading This retraction has teeth: Journal changes publication policy after discovering misconduct

Language of a liar named Stapel: Can word choice be used to identify scientific fraud?

stapel_npcA pair of Cornell researchers have analyzed the works of fraudster Diederik Stapel and found linguistic tics that stand out in his fabricated articles.

David Markowitz and Jeffrey Hancock looked at 49 of the Dutch social psychologist’s papers — 24 of which included falsified data. (Stapel has lost 54 papers so far.)

According to the abstract for the article, “Linguistic Traces of a Scientific Fraud: The Case of Diederik Stapel,” which appeared in PLoS ONE: Continue reading Language of a liar named Stapel: Can word choice be used to identify scientific fraud?

“Our jaws hit the floor!!” Researchers say authors doctored images for rebuttal letter

eurourologyTry to follow along on this one. We think it’s worth it.

The authors of a letter replying to a comment in a urology journal have retracted their response because it contained inappropriate figures. At least, that’s the official story.

The original paper, “Effect of a Risk-stratified Grade of Nerve-sparing Technique on Early Return of Continence After Robot-assisted Laparoscopic Radical Prostatectomy,” came from a group at Weill Medical College of Cornell University led by Ashutosh Tewari. Published in July 2012 in European Urology, it purported to find that: Continue reading “Our jaws hit the floor!!” Researchers say authors doctored images for rebuttal letter