With apologies in advance to the good folks at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) for making a joke about something that could very well happen to any of us, we note the following correction: Continue reading Copy editor, stat! PNAS spells its editor-in-chief’s name wrong — on a piece he co-authored
IRB issues force retraction of ulcer bug bacteria paper
A group of Turkish researchers has had a paper retracted on how to treat the bacterium that cause ulcers after the journal’s editors found “issues related to the institutional review board approval” of the project.
Here’s the retraction notice from the Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition: Continue reading IRB issues force retraction of ulcer bug bacteria paper
You plagiarized? No problem, says journal, we’ll retract so you can rewrite, and we’ll republish
Here’s something we haven’t seen before: A group of researchers plagiarize, are called on it, and are then allowed to resubmit a new version that’s published, while their offending paper is retracted.
A reader flagged the plagiarism in the original paper, “Protein domains, catalytic activity, and subcellular distribution of mouse NTE-related esterase,” by Ping’an Chang and colleagues, which led the research team to revise and resubmit the manuscript. After the journal Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry — a Springer title — published the plagiarism-scrubbed paper, the original paper required retraction.
The retraction refers to a dispute between labs, but not plagiarism: Continue reading You plagiarized? No problem, says journal, we’ll retract so you can rewrite, and we’ll republish
JAMA journal quietly replaces diabetes drug commentary after learning co-author is working for drugmaker
JAMA Internal Medicine has replaced a commentary they published last week on the risks of two diabetes drugs, but you wouldn’t know the new version was a replacement.
One change is a correction about whether Byetta and Januvia carry so-called “black box” warnings from the FDA. The original sentence:
Because both drugs already carry US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) black box warnings for the risk of pancreatitis, why is this study important?
It now reads: Continue reading JAMA journal quietly replaces diabetes drug commentary after learning co-author is working for drugmaker
Wash U psych researcher cited in ORI probe, faces multiple retractions
The Office of Research Integrity says Adam Savine, a former post-doc graduate student in psychology at Washington University in St. Louis, committed misconduct in work that tainted three papers and six abstracts he submitted to conferences.
One of Savine’s studies that drew some media attention involved Diederik Stapel-esque research showing which brain region lights up when people see money. He was quoted in this 2010 article on Medical News Today saying:
“We wanted to see what motivates us to pursue one goal in the world above all others,” Savine says. “You might think that these mechanisms would have been addressed a long time ago in psychology and neuroscience, but it’s not been until the advent of fMRI about 15-20 years ago that we’ve had the tools to address this question in humans, and any progress in this area has been very, very recent.”
Apparently, now we know. According to the notice, Savine engaged in misconduct in research funded by four grants: Continue reading Wash U psych researcher cited in ORI probe, faces multiple retractions
Scientist whose work is “not fully supported by the available laboratory records” to retract 8 more papers
Yesterday, we reported that Sunil Kumar Manna, the head of immunology at India’s Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics, had retracted two papers for image problems.
Turns out Manna will be retracting eight more, he told us today. Here they are: Continue reading Scientist whose work is “not fully supported by the available laboratory records” to retract 8 more papers
Authors retract two papers on Remicade following legal battles
A group of Belgian researchers has retracted two decade-old papers in Arthritis & Rheumatism following an investigation and court case.
The papers involved the use of the drug infliximab — sold by Johnson & Johnson as Remicade — to treat Sjögren’s syndrome, an auto-immune condition marked by the destruction of exocrine glands that secrete saliva and tears.
Infliximab is not approved for Sjögren’s. Although the two now-retracted studies suggested that it might be helpful, subsequent data did not support those findings.
Neither, apparently, did the studies themselves. Here’s the retraction notice (it’s a PDF): Continue reading Authors retract two papers on Remicade following legal battles
Retraction count for gynecologic cancer researcher Takai grows to seven
Noriyuki Takai, a gynecologic cancer researcher at Oita University in Japan who retracted three papers last October, has four more retractions, these in Cancer Letters.
All but one of the notices reads as follows: Continue reading Retraction count for gynecologic cancer researcher Takai grows to seven
And then there were eight: Three more retractions for Alirio Melendez, all in the Journal of Immunology
Alirio Melendez, who has already retracted five papers and was found by one of his former universities to have committed misconduct on more than 20, has three more retractions.
Here’s the notice for “Antisense Knockdown of Sphingosine Kinase 1 in Human Macrophages Inhibits C5a Receptor-Dependent Signal Transduction, Ca2+ Signals, Enzyme Release, Cytokine Production, and Chemotaxis,” cited 68 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge: Continue reading And then there were eight: Three more retractions for Alirio Melendez, all in the Journal of Immunology
Two retractions for scientist whose work is “not fully supported by the available laboratory records”
The head of immunology at India’s Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics, Sunil Kumar Manna, has retracted two papers for image problems.
Here’s the notice from Cell Death and Differentiation for “Inhibition of RelA phosphorylation sensitizes apoptosis in constitutive NF-kappaB-expressing and chemoresistant cells:” Continue reading Two retractions for scientist whose work is “not fully supported by the available laboratory records”