Retraction Watch

Scientific American faces firestorm after removing blog post about scientist being called a whore

We tend to stick to retractions in the peer-reviewed literature here at Retraction Watch, although we’ve made exceptions. Today’s post seemed like a good reason to make another exception, because while Nature Publishing Group-owned Scientific American is not a peer-reviewed journal, the science blogosphere and Twitter are lighting up this weekend with strong reactions to the magazine’s removal of a blog post by biologist Danielle Lee.

The incident was first noted by Dr. Rubidium, who wrote yesterday:

Scientist and science communicator @DNLee5 declined an offer to blog for free from biology-online.org and got called a ‘whore’. @DNLee5 posted a thoughtful response on her Scientific American‘s blog ’The Urban Scientist‘. A short time later, her response vanished…

(You can read Lee’s original post on Dr. Isis’s blog.)

Yesterday morning, Scientific American editor-in-chief Mariette DiChristina responded on Twitter: Continue reading Scientific American faces firestorm after removing blog post about scientist being called a whore

Stem cell scientist says data in retracted paper “is not falsified or fabricated”

Feuer_detail — Gerold Feuer, via Upstate

On Wednesday, we brought you the story of a retraction by Gerold Feuer, a State University of New York (SUNY) Upstate Medical Center stem cell scientist whom the university had found to have misused grants. He was suspended, but successfully fought that action. We had asked Feuer for comment at that time, and he has now responded:

SUNY Upstate Medical University’s decision to widely publicize the recent decision by the journal Stem Cells to retract an article from my laboratory is a vindictive and retaliatory campaign to defame my scientific credentials in the press and to my scientific colleagues.

I unequivocally state that the data in all published manuscripts is valid and sound and is not falsified or fabricated. SUNY UMU unilaterally requested a retraction from Stem Cells, despite the fact that the federal Office of Research Integrity (ORI) has not yet ruled on these allegations. It is not surprising that UMU has decided to publicize this retraction in a public forum as a second attempt to force me from my tenured faculty position and circumvent decision of the employment arbitrator and the New York Supreme Court.

To date SUNY UMU has refused to abide by the arbitrator’s “binding” decision to reinstate my faculty position and has failed to pay proper back-wages. The arbitrator evaluated operations of my spin-off company, Humurine Technologies, and stated: Continue reading Stem cell scientist says data in retracted paper “is not falsified or fabricated”

Say “Argh!” Dental journal extracts paper for plagiarism

A group of authors from Saudi Arabia and Egypt has lost their 2012 paper in the International Journal of Dentistry for what appears to be a case of large-scale lifting of text from a previously published paper.

The now-retracted article was titled “A Prospective Study of Early Loaded Single Implant-Retained Mandibular Overdentures: Preliminary One-Year Results,” and has yet to be cited, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

From the abstract: Continue reading Say “Argh!” Dental journal extracts paper for plagiarism

Pamela Ronald does the right thing again, retracting a Science paper

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 has now appeared, in Science: Continue reading Pamela Ronald does the right thing again, retracting a Science paper

Embryonic stem cell paper retracted for fabrication

Stem Cells and Development has retracted a paper it published earlier this year after the leader of the study reported that the data were unreliable.

The paper, “Derivation and Genetic Modification of Embryonic Stem Cells from Disease-Model Inbred Rat Strains,” came from the lab of Aron Geurts, of the Medical College of Wisconsin.

According to the retraction notice: Continue reading Embryonic stem cell paper retracted for fabrication

Retraction appears for stem cell researcher found to have used funds for his company’s gain

A stem cell journal is retracting a paper by Gerold Feuer, a researcher at the State University of New York (SUNY) Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse who was also found to have misused grants.

The Feuer story is complicated. Heralded in 2008 for landing $6.2 million in grants from the New York Stem Cell Board, Feuer was suspended in October 2010 while the university investigated allegations he had misused funds, specifically to funnel state dollars to HuMurine, a company he founded in 2008. In December 2010, Upstate said they had found evidence he had committed 53 acts of financial misconduct, and dismissed him.

From an August 2012 court ruling on a case Feuer brought to fight that dismissal: Continue reading Retraction appears for stem cell researcher found to have used funds for his company’s gain

Do authors who retract papers end up cited less often? Depends how eminent you are

matthew — St. Matthew, by Frans Hals, via Wikimedia

A picture of the downstream effects of retractions is starting to emerge.

In a new working paper, economists at the University of Maryland, the University of Rochester, and Northwestern University focused on work by teams of scientists. Their main findings: Continue reading Do authors who retract papers end up cited less often? Depends how eminent you are

Aoki notches fourth retraction for image problems

We have a fourth retraction in the Journal of Biochemistry for Naohito Aoki, a Japanese researcher and former postdoc in a German lab, whose images have been called into question but whose retraction notices were scant. In this case, however, the journal, while not exactly overbrimming with information about the article, at least gives us some sense of what’s going on.

Aoki worked in the lab of Axel Ullrich, of the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, and appeared on two retracted articles in the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC) with his mentor, along with a third with a co-author from Japan, Tsukasa Matsuda. Although those notices don’t say anything about the reason for the retractions — this was before the JBC started providing such information — Ulrich told us that Aoki had been manipulating images. Continue reading Aoki notches fourth retraction for image problems

Second retraction for chemist from Portugal who forged names, data

Chemical Engineering Journal has retracted a 2011 article from a group of researchers in Portugal after determining that the scientists made up their data.

The clincher: According to the journal, the researchers did not possess the proper lab equipment to perform the study as reported.

The article, “Detoxification of high-strength liquid pollutants in an ozone bubble column reactor: Gas–liquid flow patterns, interphase mass transfer and chemical depuration,” appeared in August 2011 and was written by Rodrigo J. G. Lopes and Rosa M. Quinta-Ferreira, from the Group on Environmental, Reaction and Separation Engineering in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Coimbra. The paper has been cited twice, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge, both times by the original authors.

Here’s what the abstract has to say about the work: Continue reading Second retraction for chemist from Portugal who forged names, data