Why did Science partially retract the XMRV-chronic fatigue syndrome paper?

If past experience is any indication, billions of pixels will be spilled in the coming days as scientists and advocates debate the latest twist in the story of XMRV, or xenotropic murine leukemia-related virus, and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). Today’s news is that Science is partially retracting a 2009 paper by Judy Mikovits and colleagues, including Vincent Lombardi, purporting to show a link between the virus and the syndrome — a paper about which they issued an Expression of Concern in May. The retraction is of a table and a figure — more on that in a bit.

In an excellent blow-by-blow account in Science of the nearly 20-year-long saga, also out today, Jon Cohen and Martin Enserink review the unusual circumstances of that Expression of Concern. Science editor-in-chief Bruce

Alberts and Science Executive Editor Monica Bradford had first suggested that Mikovits and her co-authors retract the paper voluntarily. “Science feels it would be in the best interest of the scientific community,” they wrote in a 26 May letter. Mikovits was livid and questioned Alberts’s motives. “Who wrote that letter? I don’t think it was Science,” she says. The co-authors thought the retraction request was premature, too. “What if we walk away from this based on contamination and it’s not contamination?” Lombardi asked. “You’ve got to give us time to figure this out.”

Alberts stresses that they floated the retraction idea because Science already planned to publish the Expression of Concern. “It wasn’t a public call for retraction,” he notes, emphasizing that the recipients shared it with the media. He also does not think it would have been premature, although he says it’s often a tough call whether to retract a paper. “Ultimately, it requires expert judgment and a lot of sensitivity to the issues,” he says. “We had lost confidence in the results.”

As Science noted in May, two studies accompanied the May Expression of Concern Continue reading Why did Science partially retract the XMRV-chronic fatigue syndrome paper?

Should authors have to retract papers based on data obtained unethically?

via Kent State http://bit.ly/r2CW44

Careful Retraction Watch readers may have noticed that one of the categories in our right-hand column under “by reason for retraction” is “lack of IRB approval.” That’s because in just over a year, we’ve written a number of posts about two cases of retractions for that reason.

One was the now-infamous case of Joachim Boldt, who has retracted some 90 papers. The other was more mundane, about a group studying injuries among Aussie rules football players. 

These retractions — and another case in which lung cancer screening trial investigators have said 90 percent of their consent forms are unobtainable, according to The Cancer Letter and The New York Times — raise some important ethical questions that we explore in our latest LabTimes column. Excerpt: Continue reading Should authors have to retract papers based on data obtained unethically?

Unveiled: Anonymous researcher found guilty of fraud in Canadian funding agency documents

Margaret Munro, a Postmedia News reporter whose work we’ve had the chance to admire before, has a few great stories running in Canadian papers today about what happened in some recent scientific fraud investigations.

She bases the stories on  Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) documents obtained under a freedom of information request. NSERC — which provides $1 billion per year for research — seems to have gone far out of its way to keep the names of the researchers a secret.

In one set of heavily redacted documents, however, they did mention a December 2008 retraction. As Retraction Watch readers know, we investigate retractions…well, not exactly for a living, but we sure spend a lot of time doing it. So we threw ourselves at our favorite database and made some connections.

Long story short: We’re quite sure we’ve found the unnamed researcher. Continue reading Unveiled: Anonymous researcher found guilty of fraud in Canadian funding agency documents

Nature Medicine paper by former Montreal Heart Institute researcher Zhiguo Wang unlikely to be retracted

We’ve been reporting on the case of Zhiguo Wang, the Montreal Heart Institute researcher who was dismissed earlier this month for scientific misconduct. In the announcement about Wang’s dismissal, the institute said it had requested the retraction of three papers other than the two that Wang had himself retracted earlier this summer, making a total of five.

We’ve been following up with journals that published Wang’s work, with the help of eagle-eyed Retraction Watch readers, and last week reported on the first of those three additional retractions, in the Journal of Cell Science. Late last week, we heard from Juan Carlos Lopez, the chief editor of Nature Medicine, which had published a paper by the group. Lopez had earlier said he was waiting for a Montreal Heart Institute report on their findings. He tells us it’s unlikely the Nature Medicine paper will be among those retracted: Continue reading Nature Medicine paper by former Montreal Heart Institute researcher Zhiguo Wang unlikely to be retracted

Group retracts Nature Immunology paper for figure irregularities after posting a correction to Science

courtesy NPG

We’re following the case of a group that recently retracted a Nature Immunology paper for figure irregularities, soon after being forced to correct images in a Science paper for similar reasons.

The Nature Immunology paper, “The helminth product ES-62 protects against septic shock via Toll-like receptor 4–dependent autophagosomal degradation of the adaptor MyD88,” has been cited just twice since it appeared online in February 2011, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. The retraction notice, which appeared online on July 19: Continue reading Group retracts Nature Immunology paper for figure irregularities after posting a correction to Science

Brown bear, brown bear, what do you see? I see fraud in sexual selection infanticide commentary

From the, No Further Explanation Required files:

The journal Animal Behaviour has retracted a 2009 article by an international group of researchers who, well, did just about everything one could do wrong with a paper.

Here’s the notice, res ipsa loquitur: Continue reading Brown bear, brown bear, what do you see? I see fraud in sexual selection infanticide commentary

Another retraction of IRB-free paper from Aussie sports medicine group

There’s another retraction from the Australian researchers who failed to obtain institutional review board (IRB) approval for their studies of rugby players and footballers.

The 2010 paper, in BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders — which had already retracted two other articles from the group — was titled “The effect of a sports chiropractic manual therapy intervention on the prevention of back pain, hamstring and lower limb injuries in semi-elite Australian Rules footballers: A randomized controlled trial.”

The editor of the journal had added this comment to the PDFs associated with the paper on August 3, a day after our post on the previous two retractions: Continue reading Another retraction of IRB-free paper from Aussie sports medicine group

Potti retraction tally grows to six with a withdrawal in PLoS ONE, and will likely end up near a dozen

Anil Potti and his former Duke colleagues have retracted a sixth paper, this one in PLoS ONE.

According to the retraction notice for “An Integrated Approach to the Prediction of Chemotherapeutic Response in Patients with Breast Cancer,” the withdrawal was prompted by the retraction of a Nature Medicine paper that formed the basis of the PLoS ONE study’s approach: Continue reading Potti retraction tally grows to six with a withdrawal in PLoS ONE, and will likely end up near a dozen

Publishing scandal costs nursing researcher his post at online university

Scott Weber

Scott Weber, the nursing researcher accused of manipulating references and other publishing misconduct in at least seven retracted articles, has lost his position at Walden University, Retraction Watch has learned.

We noticed the other day that Weber’s name had disappeared from the Walden website and put in a call to the institution. A source there told us that Weber — a part-time faculty member who had been hoping for a full-time appointment at the school — apologized when confronted about the fraud.

The source, who did not want to be identified, said Continue reading Publishing scandal costs nursing researcher his post at online university

Third retraction from dismissed Montreal cardiology researcher Zhiguo Wang appears

Ten days ago, we reported on the dismissal of Zhiguo Wang, a Montreal Heart Institute researcher who had already retracted two papers because of image manipulation. At the time, an official said the institute had requested three more retractions, but when we asked which three papers, we were told:

As written in the press release, the MHI has requested the retraction of three additional scientific articles. We will not be able to confirm the name of the scientific articles and/or publications until confirmation of the retractions.

The first of those three has now appeared, in the Journal of Cell Science, for the 2007 paper, “The muscle-specific microRNAs miR-1 and miR-133 produce opposing effects on apoptosis by targeting HSP60, HSP70 and caspase-9 in cardiomyocytes.” According to the retraction notice — which is unfortunately behind a paywall (see update at end): Continue reading Third retraction from dismissed Montreal cardiology researcher Zhiguo Wang appears