Surprise, surprise: Study says retraction notices often aren’t honest about misconduct

A paper published online the other day in the Journal of Medical Ethics puts some numbers on an issue near and dear to Retraction Watch: How transparent are retraction notices when it comes to misconduct?

David Resnik and Gregg Dinse, of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, looked at the 208 cases closed by the U.S. Office of Research Integrity from 1992 to 2011 that involved “official findings of research misconduct.” As they note: Continue reading Surprise, surprise: Study says retraction notices often aren’t honest about misconduct

Flawed disclosure leads dental journal to retract disinfection paper

The Journal of the American Dental Association has retracted a paper it published earlier this year after learning that the author took liberties with certain “critical information” about the trial.

The article, “The Effect of Long-Term Disinfection on Clinical Contact Surfaces,” was written by Charles John Palenik, who retired as director of infection control research and services at Indiana University in 2011, according to Medscape Medical News, which first reported the story and whose earlier story had originally flagged issues in the paper to the journal.

The editor of the journal, Michael Glick, initially intended to issue an erratum and explain what went wrong with the article, but not retract the piece, Medscape reported in June.  At the time, Glick told the news service that Continue reading Flawed disclosure leads dental journal to retract disinfection paper

University College London mitochondrial biologist resigns after three retractions for image fraud

Courtesy Nature Publishing Group

A biologist at University College London (UCL) has resigned his post and taken responsibility for “inappropriate figures manipulations” in three now-retracted papers.

Assegid Garedew, formerly a senior research investigator in Salvador Moncada‘s group, stepped down earlier this summer in the midst of an investigation that should be completed soon, Moncada tells Retraction Watch.

The three retraction notices for papers by Garedew and colleagues are all similar.

From Cell Metabolism: “Mitochondrial Dynamics, Biogenesis, and Function Are Coordinated with the Cell Cycle by APC/CCDH1“, cited once, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge: Continue reading University College London mitochondrial biologist resigns after three retractions for image fraud

Journal editor resigned in wake of retractions for fake email addresses that enabled self-peer review

The case of Hyung-In Moon — the researcher who faked email addresses for potential peer reviewers so he could do his own peer review — has already led to one resignation.

Emilio Jirillo, the editor of Immunopharmacology and Immunotoxicology, which retracted 20 of Moon’s papers, stepped down earlier this year in the wake of the case, Retraction Watch has learned.

Here’s a note the publisher posted on the journal’s site on June 15: Continue reading Journal editor resigned in wake of retractions for fake email addresses that enabled self-peer review

German university calls whistleblower’s emails “dangerous”

In an unusual move, a German university has issued a statement calling into question “the scientific honesty” of a whistleblower, and suggesting that his emails were “dangerous.”

Some background: Off and on here at Retraction Watch, we have been following a complicated case involving Robert Nitsch, a scientist at the Johannes-Gutenberg-University. In August of last year, we reported on the retraction in the FASEB Journal of a paper on which Nitsch was a co-author. What made that retraction unusual was that it came after Charite – Universitatsmedizin Berlin, where Nitsch and some of his co-authors worked at the time, recommended a retraction even though the journal had originally agreed to a correction at the authors’ request. And a month later, we noted that Nitsch was a co-author on a Cell paper that was corrected for figure errors.

We became aware of the FASEB Journal retraction through Markus Kühbacher, who has been emailing us regularly about the case for about a year and a half. We knew from the cc: list that Kühbacher was emailing a number of people, and now Nitsch’s university has had enough, according to a letter they sent today to a number of scientists and journalists. Here it is in full: Continue reading German university calls whistleblower’s emails “dangerous”

Authors retract Digestion paper for “unacceptably high number of errors”

A group of South Korean researchers has decided to withdraw a paper they recently published in the journal Digestion because it was filled with mistakes.

The paper, “Endoscopy-Based Decision Is Sufficient for Predicting Completeness in Lateral Resection Margin in Colon Endoscopic Submucosal Dissection,” was published earlier this year (and online in late 2011) by a group in Seoul. But according to the retraction notice:

Continue reading Authors retract Digestion paper for “unacceptably high number of errors”

Former Tokyo Tech materials researcher sanctioned after bringing forward evidence of data fabrication

A materials researcher faced three months without salary, retired from his research position and may have to return a portion of a grant worth $1 million US as punishment after a postdoc in his lab was caught fabricating data.

Seizo Miyata, formerly a materials researcher at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, headed a group that worked on carbon alloy catalysts. Last year, Miyata told Retraction Watch, he found evidence that postdoc Wu Libin had fabricated data.

Reached by Retraction Watch by phone, Miyata didn’t say who uncovered the evidence, nor how, but when he confronted Libin, the postdoc confessed. Miyata said he alerted Texas Tokyo Tech administrators last year, and requested the retraction of “Preparation of carbon-based catalysts for PEFC cathodes from aromatic polyamide with Fe compound,” which appeared in Applied Catalysis A: General in July 2011. That retraction notice reads: Continue reading Former Tokyo Tech materials researcher sanctioned after bringing forward evidence of data fabrication

20 more retractions for scientist who made up email addresses so he could review his own papers

Hyung-In Moon, the South Korean plant compound researcher who came up with fake email addresses so that he could do his own peer review, has retracted twenty more papers, all in Immunopharmacology and Immunotoxicology, an Informa Healthcare title.

Here are the papers: Continue reading 20 more retractions for scientist who made up email addresses so he could review his own papers

ORI finds Harvard stem cell lab post-doc Mayack manipulated images

courtesy Nature

Shane Mayack, a former post-doc in Harvard lab of Amy Wagers, a rising star in the stem cell field, has been sanctioned by the Office of Research Integrity for misconduct.

Mayack, who has defended her actions on this blog as honest error — albeit sloppiness — and has not admitted to wrongdoing, must undergo supervision if she receives any federal grant funding over the next three years, under the voluntary agreement.

Here’s the notice, which appeared in the Federal Register this week (and which the Boston Globe was first to report): Continue reading ORI finds Harvard stem cell lab post-doc Mayack manipulated images

Ulrich Lichtenthaler’s co-author removed from paper

The Ulrich Lichtenthaler publication record continues to unravel.

Lichtenthaler has retracted six papers, and a frequent co-author’s name has been removed from a recent paper in the Journal of Product Innovation Management. The paper, “The Performance Implications of Dynamic Capabilities: The Case of Product Innovation,” went online on June 12 of this year. Its abstract now includes this note: Continue reading Ulrich Lichtenthaler’s co-author removed from paper