Irony alert: If you’re going to publish in the Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, you’d better be able to play well with others.
Not so, it seems, with a certain Darrel Montero. Montero, an associate professor in the School of Social Work at Arizona State University, and his colleagues have lost their 2012 paper in the journal for what appears to be a case of data theft.
As the retraction notice explains:
Continue reading Social work researchers lose paper for misuse of data
PubMed today launches a pilot version of PubMed Commons,
a system that enables researchers to share their opinions about scientific publications. Researchers can comment on any publication indexed by PubMed, and read the comments of others.
In general, we’re big fans of post-publication peer review, as Retraction Watch readers know. Once it’s out of its pilot phase — and we hope that’s quite soon — PubMed Commons comments will be publicly available. So this is a step forward — but only a tentative one. That’s because of the first bullet point in the terms of service commenters agree to: Continue reading PubMed now allows comments on abstracts — but only by a select few
The Journal of Pediatric Nursing has retracted a 2013 article (meeting abstract, really) on growth hormone after the drug company that employed the authors cried “take it back.”
The research appears to have been presented at a meeting of the Pediatric Endocrinology Nursing Society, and looked at inefficiency in the use of devices for administering growth hormone. All but one of the authors is listed as working for Novo Nordisk, an international pharmaceutical firm.
Here’s the notice: Continue reading Nursing journal pulls Novo Nordisk growth hormone paper over data provenance
Last month, we reported on the upcoming publication of a new book by Marc Hauser, the former Harvard psychologist found guilty of misconduct by the Office of Research Integrity. The main thrust of our post was questioning why two leading science writers would blurb the new book, Evilicious, but we also pointed out that Hauser hadn’t even bothered to note in his list of publications that one of his papers had been retracted. That seemed consistent with his neither admitting nor denying misconduct, as is reported by the Office of Research Integrity in their findings.
A few days after our post ran, Hauser tweeted:
Continue reading Marc Hauser corrects a tiny part of the scientific record
Sometimes, authors and journals editors seem to think a bit of mystery is a good thing. Take a recent retraction in Brain.
Here’s the notice for “Selective impairment of hand mental rotation in patients with focal hand dystonia:” Continue reading “Ambiguities in the presentation of some of the data” lead to an ambiguous retraction notice
Physica B: Condensed Matter has retracted a 2013 paper by a group from Morocco and France for, well, inappropriate condensation of printed matter.
The article, “Granular and intergranular conduction in La1.32Sr1.68Mn2O7 layered manganite system,” came mostly from a team of physicists at University Ibn Zohr, and appeared in June.
According to the retraction notice: Continue reading Plagiarism leads to retraction of conduction paper
A leading Neapolitan cancer researcher is under criminal investigation for fraud, the Italian press is reporting.
Although we have only rough translations of the story, it seems the researcher, Alfredo Fusco, of the National Council of Research’s Institute of Experimental Endocrinology and Oncology, has been accused of manipulating images in published studies and to strengthen the case for grants from the Italian Association for Cancer Research (AIRC).
The case covers eight papers published between 2001 and 2012, according to the media reports. We don’t know the specifics of the eight articles, nor why none appears yet to have been retracted. In our experience, the criminal inquiries usually follow the expose of scientific misconduct, not the other way around.
Fusco’s work is highly cited, with some 50 papers cited at least 100 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.
According to the institute’s website: Continue reading Italian cancer specialist facing criminal investigation for misconduct
Nitin Aggarwal, formerly of the Medical College of Wisconsin, faked data in his PhD thesis, grant applications to the NIH and American Heart Association, and in two papers, according to new findings by the Office of Research Integrity.
(The case would have apparently first been published in the Federal Register on October 2, except for the government shutdown.)
Here were their findings: Continue reading Cardiology researcher faked data in his prizewinning PhD thesis — and NIH, AHA grants: ORI
Alirio Melendez, who was found guilty of scientific misconduct by the National University of Singapore and has had 13 papers retracted, says none of what he’s being accused of is true.
In a statement posted yesterday at ajmelendez.co.uk and this morning at Retraction Watch, Melendez acknowledges that fraud occurred in his laboratory, but “categorically” denies having taken part in it. Here’s the full statement: Continue reading Alirio Melendez categorically denies data falsification, alleges cover-up
Science‘s John Bohannon has recently revealed the extent of poor or non-existent peer review in some journals that call themselves peer-reviewed, as we reported on here.
Now, an open-access publisher based in Rijeka, Croatia, called InTech, has cancelled its journal that was targeted and exposed by Science’s investigation. The journal was going to charge 400 euros to publish the paper by Bohannon.
The International Journal of Integrative Medicine has been “discontinued”, does “not accept submissions” and “is no longer active” states the publisher’s website.
The notice, posted just a day after Science published its piece, says: Continue reading Fallout from Science’s publisher sting: Journal closes in Croatia