Brazil statement urges culture of research integrity

As its research institutions grow and mature, the Brazilian scientific establishment is hoping its scientists encourage research integrity and responsible conduct of research.

In late May, Ivan was invited to Brazil to take part in the Second Brazilian Meeting on Research Integrity, Science and Publication Ethics(II BRISPE). Organized by the Medical Biochemistry Institute (IBqM/UFRJ) & Alberto Luiz Coimbra Institute for Graduate Studies and Research in Engineering (COPPE/UFRJ), the meeting traveled from Rio de Janeiro to São Paulo to Porto Alegre over the course of several days.

One of the goals of the whirlwind meeting, which brought together researchers, administrators, funding agencies, and experts in scientific integrity from around the world, was to produce a Joint Statement on Scientific Integrity. That statement, into which Ivan had input, has now been published, so we thought we’d post links to it in English, Portuguese, and Spanish and check in with Sonia Maria Ramos Vasconcelos, one of the organizers of the meeting. Continue reading Brazil statement urges culture of research integrity

Chinese mathematician forced to retract paper after two co-authors say they had nothing to do with work

A mathematician will be performing subtraction on his CV now that he has had to retract a 2011 paper because his co-authors never agreed to submit it with him.

Kewen Zhao, of Qiongzhou University, Sanya, China, has lost a paper in Discrete Applied Mathematics, a journal for which Zhao claims to review. (Given the circumstances, perhaps he meant Indiscreet Applied Mathematics.)

According to the notice: Continue reading Chinese mathematician forced to retract paper after two co-authors say they had nothing to do with work

What happens when a correction is retracted?

Seyed Rasoul Mousavi, assistant professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at the Isfahan University of Technology in Khomeynīshahr, Iran, has been working on a way to help biologists assemble genomes with as little information as possible.

Last year, Mousavi submitted a manuscript to the Journal of Theoretical Biology, received acceptance after peer review, and got proofs back to edit.

For technical reasons, Mousavi says his corrections didn’t make it into the final article published on Jan. 12, so the publishers issued a separate corrigendum with the editorial changes. Then, on Feb. 8, the publishers retracted the corrigendum that accompanied the original article. The retraction of the corrigendum reads: Continue reading What happens when a correction is retracted?

Three more retractions for Diederik Stapel

We apologize for what must seem like a constant drip, drip, drip, but we have three more retractions from Diederik Stapel to report, all from the European Journal of Social Psychology.

The first, in order of publication date, involves a 2006 paper by Stapel and co-author Camille Johnson — whose name has appeared on several other of Stapel’s retracted papers — titled “When nothing compares to me: How defensive motivations and similarity shape social comparison effects.”

The notice reads: Continue reading Three more retractions for Diederik Stapel

Another retraction for potential prostate cancer test from Hopkins

Earlier this year, we reported on the case of Robert Getzenberg of Johns Hopkins, who retracted a 2007 paper in Urology that was “at the center of two 2009 lawsuits brought by a company that funded the work.”

Getzenberg has now retracted a related paper,  “Analysis of a serum test for prostate cancer that detects a second epitope of EPCA-2,” published in The Prostate in 2009 and cited nine times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

The notice in The Prostate goes further than the one in Urology, using the word “falsification:” Continue reading Another retraction for potential prostate cancer test from Hopkins

Amarin pulls a Romney: For the second time in a week, premature news of FDA drug approval posted, then retracted

There is apparently a special this week on websites posting news of drug approvals before they actually happen.

On Monday, USA Today inadvertently posted a story about the approval of Qsymia, a weight loss drug, several hours before the FDA made an announcement. Today, Amarin, which makes a compound designed to lower triglycerides, put up a site saying that the drug had been approved by the FDA. Trouble was, that decision isn’t expected until July 26. According to Reuters: Continue reading Amarin pulls a Romney: For the second time in a week, premature news of FDA drug approval posted, then retracted

Closing loop, Science retracts Hill group oxo paper

Craig Hill

Last month, we broke the news that Emory chemist Craig Hill and colleagues were retracting two papers in the Journal of the American Chemical Society and one in Science. At the time, the Science move was pending, but now the journal has officially pulled the article, titled “A Late-Transition Metal Oxo Complex: K7Na9[O=PtIV(H2O)L2], L = [PW9O34]9–”.

The notice reads: Continue reading Closing loop, Science retracts Hill group oxo paper

Two retractions in biophysics journal, one because article is “too preliminary and potentially misleading”

We’ve seen vigorous debates here on Retraction Watch about when studies should be retracted. Does it require fraud? Just not being reproducible? Somewhere in between?

Given the apparent divergence of opinions on the issue, we thought it would be worth highlighting a case that involves language we haven’t seen before. Here’s the notice for “Apoptosis of CT26 colorectal cancer cells induced by Clostridium difficile toxin A stimulates potent anti-tumor immunity,” which originally appeared online in Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications in April: Continue reading Two retractions in biophysics journal, one because article is “too preliminary and potentially misleading”

Hmmm: SAGE’s attorney explains why weight loss retraction notices said less than those of other journals

In May, we broke the story of Edward Shang, a weight loss surgeon who made up most, if not all, of the patients he reported on in at least one study. We’ve been following the case since then, including three more retractions in the Journal of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (JPEN).

As we noted in a June 22 post, the notices in JPEN were a bit more lean than the first notice we found, in Surgery for Obesity and Related Diseases. The latter read: Continue reading Hmmm: SAGE’s attorney explains why weight loss retraction notices said less than those of other journals

Another retraction for grad student who specializes in plagiarism and forging co-authors’ names

We have an update on the case of Moêz Smiri, a graduate student working in a Tunisian-French laboratory, whose bold method of bulking up his CV  proved a bit trop ambitieux. 

As we reported back in August 2011, Smiri had plagiarized repeatedly from previously-published work, and forged the names of co-authors, in a 2010 article in Plant Science on the effects of cadmium on peas. That article was one of at least six papers on which Smiri appeared as first author — a pretty impressive output for a young researcher.

Among the list was article in Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety, “Effect of cadmium on resumption of respiration in cotyledons of germinating pea seeds.” That paper is now retracted. According to the notice: Continue reading Another retraction for grad student who specializes in plagiarism and forging co-authors’ names