A University of Minnesota social scientist who studies health disparities has retracted a study that apparently lacked ethical approval.
Here’s the notice for “Deservingness to state health services for South – South migrants: A preliminary study of Costa Rican providers’ views,” a paper in Social Science & Medicine by Kate Goldade and a colleague: Continue reading Social sciences paper retracted for lack of ethical approval
Earlier today, we reported on the withdrawal of a paper from Research Policy, an Elsevier journal. The notice didn’t give a reason, just that the “article has been withdrawn at the request of the authors and editor.”
We’ve seen a number of such opaque withdrawals from Elsevier journals, and thought it was worth some exploration. While Elsevier’s policy here on such withdrawals is clear, as it is in other matters, we take some issue with it: Continue reading Is an “article in press” “published?” A word about Elsevier’s withdrawal policy
A frequent co-author of Ulrich Lichtenthaler — the management professor who has retracted at least eight papers — has now withdrawn one of his own from Research Policy.
The original paper, “How to create commercial value from patents: The role of patent management,” by Holger Ernst and colleagues, went online on May 21, 2012. Here’s the notice: Continue reading Lichtenthaler co-author Ernst retracts paper that didn’t include Lichtenthaler
One of the two corrections recommended by a McGill committee for work by Maya Saleh and colleagues has appeared, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
As we reported last month, the committee found that
two figures in [a] Nature paper had been “intentionally contrived and falsified.” One of those figures was duplicated in a PNAS paper, which also contained an image that had incorrectly labeled some proteins.
The committee recommended that both of the papers be corrected, and the PNAS correction for “Confinement of caspase-12 proteolytic activity to autoprocessing” reads as follows: Continue reading Musical figures: PNAS paper corrected with version of “intentionally contrived and falsified” Nature figure
A German professor who claims to have developed “a self-consistent field theory which is used to derive at all known interactions of the potential vortex” will have at least two papers retracted, thanks to the scrutiny of a concerned economist.
The first retraction has already appeared, in DNA and Cell Biology, for a paper by Konstantin Meyl called “DNA and Cell Resonance: Magnetic Waves Enable Cell Communication.” The notice says nothing: Continue reading “Way out there” paper claiming to merge physics and biology retracted
As a first-year medical student at the University of California, San Diego, Jessica Tang already has an impressive CV. Her name has appeared on ten papers in the medical literature, including three in the Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine. On one of these she was the sole author.
Except that one doesn’t exist anymore. But the reason for the retraction does not appear to involve shoddy work by the researcher. Rather, Tang failed to appreciate the politics of the lab in which she worked — and it cost her.
Continue reading Med student loses paper when former boss claims right to data
Plagiarism and duplication might involve the same act — the misuse of text and/or data — but they are different species. Take it from Eldon Smith, who as editor of the Canadian Journal of Cardiology defined the two acts of misconduct for his readers:
Plagiarism is the appropriation of another person’s ideas, processes, results or words without giving appropriate credit (1). One usually thinks of plagiarism in science as publishing phrases, sentences or passages (without attribution) that were previously published by someone else. …
If an author publishes the same article twice, he or she is guilty not only of the misconduct of duplicate publication, but also of plagiarism; this time, the author has plagiarized himself or herself. Unfortunately, such blatant misconduct is not rare. … It is difficult to understand how this can be interpreted as an honest error.
Perhaps the editors of the International Journal of Cardiology might want to take a look at Smith’s editorial. Continue reading Retraction Watch, Noah Webster style, cardiology edition
In late December, we reported on the retraction of a 2010 research letter in Emerging Infectious Diseases looking at the genetics of swine flu.
The notice in the journal, a CDC publication, indicated that the conclusions were in error, although it didn’t really say much more:
To the Editor: We would like to retract the letter entitled “Triple Reassortant Swine Influenza A (H3N2) Virus in Waterfowl,” which was published the April 2010 issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases (1). The nucleoprotein gene sequences from the viruses reported in that letter are very closely related to those from the earliest detected triple reassortant swine influenza viruses [CY095676 A/sw/Texas/4199–2/1998(H3N2)]. Although these viruses could have acquired a swine-origin segment, the branch lengths are quite short for 9 years of evolution. Therefore, we have withdrawn these 4 isolates from GenBank and subsequently retract this letter.
As it happens, there was more to the story.
As expected, ten Retraction Watch posts about Anil Potti that were mistakenly removed for a false Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notice have been restored.
Automattic, which runs WordPress, notified us tonight of the move, which comes two weeks after the original notice. The claim against Retraction Watch was ridiculous, of course; a site in India plagiarized our posts, then claimed we had violated their copyright. That site, perhaps not surprisingly, has been taken down.
In the meantime, another site has been hit with a DMCA notice for a post about Potti, and Potti has told us that he had nothing to do with the takedown notice filed against us.
If you missed those posts — one of which is an accounting of Potti’s retraction record so far — here they are: Continue reading Anil Potti posts restored to Retraction Watch following false DMCA claim
The journal Proteomics has retracted a paper for a plagiarized figure — but how the authors came to possess the image in the first place remains a mystery.
Here’s the notice: Continue reading Proteomics paper retracted for plagiarized figure of mysterious origin