Edward Shang, the weight loss surgeon who lost his job at the University of Leipzig in May after it was revealed that he had made up most, if not all, of the patients in his research studies at the University of Mannheim, has retracted three more papers.
Here’s the notice, which is a bit, um, lean, given what we know about the case: Continue reading Three more retractions for weight loss surgeon Edward Shang for making up data
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A is retracting a 2010 paper whose authors misappropriated data, forged an author name — and got a pretty strong backhand slap for the trouble.
The paper, “Green waxes, adhesives and lubricants,” which refers to eco-friendly materials, not Halloween-friendly slimes, was published by a group of researchers from China and Canada. Problem was, the one from Canada evidently didn’t know she was listed on the manuscript, and a big chunk of the work had been misappropriated from her university.
As the notice explains: Continue reading Misconduct burns authors of wax paper, leads to sharply worded retraction notice
With temperatures at Retraction Watch’s New York HQ threatening to break 100 degrees today — that’s nearly 38 degrees Celsius for those of you in the rest of the world — what better way to take our minds off the heat than by writing about than skiing?
Lucky for us, the author of a paper in the Journal of Maps about new ways to create ski resort maps — aka the “Breckenridge schematic map” — has retracted it. Here’s the notice: Continue reading Updated: Ski resort paper hits a (media) mogul and gets retracted
Are drug company R&D departments reading blogs?
In a recent paper, “Translational evaluation of JNJ-18038683, a 5-HT7 receptor antagonist, on REM sleep and in major depressive disorder,” researchers with New Jersey-based Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc. tested whether a potential drug code-named JNJ-18038683 that binds to a receptor linked to depression could actually help patients.
Turns out, the drug was a flop, but Continue reading JPET corrects Janssen antidepressant paper after neuroscience blogger notes errors
A group of researchers at the drug company ChemoCentryx is withdrawing a 2012 paper in the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics over failure to appropriately identify the molecule they describe in the article.
The withdrawal notice tells the story: Continue reading JPET peeves: Paper withdrawn after drug company won’t disclose chemical structure
Last August, we brought you the news that the Indian Journal of Dermatology had banned a group of Tunisian researchers from publishing in the journal for five years, because they had plagiarized in a 2009 study.
Well, the journal’s editors found another case in which the authors have plagiarized, and now they’re banned from the journal for good. Here’s the notice, which describes both cases: Continue reading Serial plagiarizers banned from dermatology journal forever
Three journals under the JAMA umbrella are retracting papers by Yoshitaka Fujii, the Japanese anesthesiologist accused of research misconduct so sweeping that it might net him the record for most retractions by a single author.
The papers, in the Archives of Surgery, Archives of Ophthalmology and the Archives of Otolaryngology — Head & Neck Surgery, were published in 2001 and 2005.
Here are the notices, which are essentially identical but for the titles of the articles: Continue reading Three more Fujii papers fall for lack of IRB approval
Dipak Das, who until earlier this year ran a high-profile cardiovascular research center at the University of Connecticut, has recorded a slick looking video defense against allegations that he cooked data and manipulated images in scores of published studies, 12 of which have been retracted to date.
Das, who was hit with a 60,000 pages of allegations stemming from a three-year investigation by the university, spends the bulk of the documentary-style interview — which is available on YouTube — talking about the wonders of resveretrol. But he gets into the misconduct charges at about the 15-minute mark.
A follow-up on two stories we’ve covered here at Retraction Watch:
1. Criminal charges against chronic fatigue syndrome researcher dropped
The state of Nevada has dropped criminal charges against Judy Mikovits, the embattled chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) researcher whose paper linking the condition to a virus, XMRV, was retracted last year by Science.
As we reported in November, Mikovits was arrested in Ventura County, California on an “out of county warrant” from Washoe County, Nevada, for allegedly taking lab notebooks, a computer, and other material from the Whittemore Peterson Institute in Reno, Nevada, after the WPI fired her in September.
The first report on the dropped charges was apparently by Mikovits’ friend Lilly Meehan on Facebook, news that was picked up by the ProHealth website on June 13 (their post has since been updated). Later that day, ScienceInsider’s Jon Cohen, who has been covering the case closely, reported that Continue reading Catching up: Charges against CFS-XMRV researcher Mikovits dropped, ‘gyres’ author Andrulis publishes another paper
PLoS ONE has issued an expression of concern over a 2010 paper by Chinese scientists about how the immune system responds to the vaccine against the swine flu.
The article, “Protection Induced on Day 10 Following Administration of the 2009 A/H1N1 Pandemic Influenza Vaccine,” claimed to study 58 subjects given the inoculation (more on that below) and that Continue reading PLoS ONE expresses concern over flu vaccine paper