About a month ago, we reported on a retraction by Pamela Ronald, of the University of California, Davis, and colleagues. We noted then that this was a case of scientists doing the right thing. Ronald contacted us after that post ran, and let us know that there would be another retraction shortly. That retraction notice … Continue reading Pamela Ronald does the right thing again, retracting a Science paper
As the bumper sticker says, “Regime change starts at home.” Seems to be the case with scientists these days. This month we have seen commendable instances of researchers retracting papers after identifying flaws in their own data — an outbreak of integrity that has us here at Retraction Watch applauding. (We’ve even created a new … Continue reading It’s an epidemic! Another group does the right thing, retracting neuroscience paper
There have been a number of thoughtful stories and opinion pieces on scientific fraud recently. There was Brian Deer in the Sunday Times of London last month. Paul Jump, at the Times Higher Education, later that month looked at the lessons of one particular case. Alok Jha, of the Guardian, took on the issue last … Continue reading Does focusing on wrongdoing in research feed mistrust of science?
Improperly aligned columns have cost researchers at the Mayo Clinic a paper in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. The paper originally concluded that fainting spells (syncope) give patients with high blood pressure in their lung arteries poor prognoses, an observation that turned out to be incorrect. The problem? The group merged two electronic … Continue reading Not for the faint of heart: Cardiologists retract syncope paper after realizing data columns weren’t aligned right
We have updates on the two mysterious Journal of Neuroscience retractions we reported on yesterday. One is that we have learned that there is a university investigation into the work of one of the teams that retracted one of the studies. More on that in a bit. Two, the journal’s editor, John Maunsell, responded to … Continue reading Update on Journal of Neuroscience retractions: Authors being investigated. Plus, editor explains why notices say nothing
Would you consider a donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? The week at Retraction Watch featured: Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up past 400. There are more than 50,000 retractions in The Retraction Watch Database — which is now part of Crossref. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains more than 250 titles. And have … Continue reading Weekend reads: Retractions at Columbia; retractions for a rector; the early days of peer review
A diabetes researcher who lost a defamation suit against a journal that marked four of his papers with expressions of concern now has four more papers flagged – by the same journal. Diabetes, a journal of the American Diabetes Association (ADA), placed expressions of concern on four papers led or co-authored by Mario Saad, of … Continue reading History repeats itself: Diabetes researcher gets four expressions of concern in journal he once sued
Less than a year after he became dean of the University of Alabama Birmingham School of Dentistry, an uncomfortable email landed in Russell Taichman’s inbox. Overlapping and duplicated panels in one of Taichman’s 2005 papers were among a list of complaints relayed by the publisher of Cellular Signalling in the April 2020 correspondence – complaints … Continue reading Exclusive: How a dean went about correcting the scientific record even when at least one journal said he didn’t need to
Would you consider a donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance. The week at Retraction Watch featured: Company’s Alzheimer’s treatment study earns a flag ‘A significant departure’: Former Kentucky researcher faked 28 figures in grant applications and papers, say Feds Science retracts coral reef recovery paper more than a year after a … Continue reading Weekend reads: Underage sex comic study removed following outrage; postdoc claims retaliation; plagiarism in COVID-19 papers
A Springer Nature journal has retracted a paper on hepatitis C infection it had previously corrected for problematic data – but in between the editors declared the case closed. The paper, “The interaction between microRNA-152 and DNA methyltransferase-1 as an epigenetic prognostic biomarker in HCV-induced liver cirrhosis and HCC patients,” was published in July 2019 … Continue reading February: ‘we don’t agree there is an issue here.’ June: Retracted.