Is it time for a Retraction Index?

We often hear — with data to back the statement — that top-tier journals, ranked by impact factor, retract more papers than lower-tier journals. For example, when Murat Cokol and colleagues compared journals’ retraction numbers in EMBO Reports in 2007, as Nature noted in its coverage of that study (h/t Richard van Noorden):

Journals with high impact factors retract more papers, and low-impact journals are more likely not to retract them, the study finds. It also suggests that high- and low-impact journals differ little in detecting flawed articles before they are published.

One thing you notice when you look at Cokol et al’s plots is that although their models seem to take retractions “per capita” — in other words per study published — into account, they don’t report those figures.

Enter a paper published this week in Infection and Immunity (IAI) by Ferric Fang and Arturo Casadevall, “Retracted Science and the Retraction Index.” Continue reading Is it time for a Retraction Index?

A quick Physical Review Letters retraction after author realizes analysis was “performed incorrectly”

One of the authors of a paper in Physical Review Letters has withdrawn it, after someone pointed out an error.

The paper, “Coulomb Forces on DNA Polymers in Charged Fluidic Nanoslits,” was written by Brown University’s Derek Stein and one of his graduate students, Yongqiang Ren. It was published in February of this year, and the retraction ran on July 20.

The notice is forthright: Continue reading A quick Physical Review Letters retraction after author realizes analysis was “performed incorrectly”

Cal Poly Pomona education researcher leaves post after rampant plagiarism is revealed

In late June, we wrote about a case of wholesale plagiarism involving an education researcher in California, Thienhuong N. Hoang. Our post prompted a flurry of emails from readers cluing us in to other cases in which Hoang, of California State Polytechnic University in Pomona, had lifted essentially entire articles from other scholars and changed little, if anything, but the author information.

For example, Hoang’s “‘The Contributions of Teachers’ Credentialing Routes and Experience Levels on Classroom Management,” in the January 2009 issue of the International Journal of Instruction, was the same, nearly word-for-word, as the work of two other authors, “Exploring the relationship between certification sources, experience levels, and classroom management orientations of classroom teachers,” published in Teaching and Teacher Education in 2007.

The International Journal of Instruction has removed the article from its archive and placed this announcement on its site: Continue reading Cal Poly Pomona education researcher leaves post after rampant plagiarism is revealed

Two papers to be retracted after ORI finds misconduct by Boston University cancer researcher

courtesy Nature Publishing Group

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Research Integrity (ORI) has found that a Boston University cancer researcher made up experiments reported in two papers funded by National Cancer Institute and National Institutes of Health grants. According to the ORI notice:

Sheng Wang, PhD, Boston University School of Medicine Cancer Research Center: Based on the Respondent’s acceptance of ORI’s research misconduct findings, ORI found that Dr. Sheng Wang, who has been an Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine Cancer Research Center (BUSM), engaged in research misconduct in research supported by National Cancer Institute (NCI), National Institutes of Health (NIH), grants R01 CA102940 and R01 CA101992.

The two papers were: Continue reading Two papers to be retracted after ORI finds misconduct by Boston University cancer researcher

Authors retract two JBC papers on how heart rhythms go awry; Montreal Heart Institute looking into why

The authors of two Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC) studies of the molecular underpinnings of hearts whose rhythms have gone awry have retracted the papers, for reasons that are not completely clear.

The two papers are  “MicroRNA miR-133 represses HERG K+ channel expression contributing to QT prolongation in diabetic hearts,” published in 2007, and “Down-regulation of miR-1/miR-133 contributes to re-expression of pacemaker channel genes HCN2 and HCN4 in hypertrophic heart,” published in 2008.

This being the JBC, the retraction notices in the August 12, 2011 issue say nothing: Continue reading Authors retract two JBC papers on how heart rhythms go awry; Montreal Heart Institute looking into why

India’s Kalasalingam University swiftly fires professor, kicks out six students after data manipulation scandal

Kalasalingam University in India has fired a professor who last month blamed unethical students for data manipulation that forced the retraction of three papers amid questions about five more.

As Krishna Pillai of the K2P blog reports, Sangiliyandi Gurunathan, head of Kalasalingam’s biotechnology department, was asked to resign, and did so on Friday, August 5. Kalasalingam also revoked the registrations of six graduate students who were co-authors on the retracted papers. Here’s the university press release with the details.

In comments to Retraction Watch for our earlier post, Gurunathan laid the blame on unethical students and journals, although his story didn’t quite hold together: Continue reading India’s Kalasalingam University swiftly fires professor, kicks out six students after data manipulation scandal

Former Pitt psych nursing researcher loses seven papers (and counting) in referencing, plagiarism scandal

Scott Weber

Scott Weber seems to have been behaving badly. The Journal of Child & Adolescent Psychiatric Nursing (JCAPN) has retracted five of Weber’s papers, dating back to 2009. And the Journal of the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners (JAANP)and Perspectives in Psychiatric Care also have pulled articles by the nursing researcher. The reason: he misused his sources and plagiarized the work of others.

That’s our interpretation of the retraction notices, which come close to saying as much but don’t quite get there. Here they are, so you can judge for yourself: Continue reading Former Pitt psych nursing researcher loses seven papers (and counting) in referencing, plagiarism scandal

Tune in to Science Friday today to hear Retraction Watch

It’s a nice way to celebrate our first anniversary this week: Ivan will appear today on Science Friday, the nationally syndicated NPR program hosted by Ira Flatow.

The segment, “If Science Takes A Wrong Turn, Who Rights It,” is part of the show’s first hour, at 2 p.m. Eastern. It will also feature Grant Steen, whose work we’ve covered.

You can listen online, or find a station near you that carries it, if you’re in the U.S. It’s live, so call in — you know we love hearing from Retraction Watch readers. It will also be archived on the site, so you can listen later.

Update, 5:15 Eastern, 8/5/11: Here’s that archived audio (top left corner).

Plant paper pulled over authorship concerns

The Journal of Phytopathology has retracted a 2010 article by a French researcher who apparently misled editors about her role in preparing the manuscript.

From the notice for the article, “Trade-off between Virulence and Aggressiveness in Plasmopara halstedii (Sunflower Downy Mildew),” by Nachaat Sakr: Continue reading Plant paper pulled over authorship concerns

Happy anniversary, Retraction Watch: What we’ve learned, and what’s in store for year two

Adam and Ivan at Retraction Watch HQ, aka NYC's Market Diner

Today marks the 1-year anniversary of the launch of Retraction Watch. We’d like to thank our readers, tipsters, and fans for your support and feedback — and our helpful critics who have spurred us to do better.

Over the past 12 months we’ve written more than 250 posts about retractions ranging from the extraordinary — think Joachim Boldt and his 90-odd withdrawals, and the Byzantine case of Silvia Bulfone-Paus — to the trivial (much of the plagiarism, for instance); the laudable (a swift one in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, to pick one) to the ludicrous (the reason for that retraction is “none of your damn business,” one editor told us).

We haven’t done a careful count — more on more rigorous indexing later — but those posts cover something like 200 retractions, given that there are more than 120 between just Boldt, Bulfone-Paus, and Naoki Mori. That is unusually high activity for a 12-month period; the annual average for the previous 10 years was about 80. (Let us be the first to point out that any correlation between our founding and that high number does not imply causation.)

We made a rather presumptuous promise when we started this project. Continue reading Happy anniversary, Retraction Watch: What we’ve learned, and what’s in store for year two