Data fraud at Emory leads to retractions of three cardiology papers

An investigation by Emory University in Atlanta has led to the retractions of three articles containing falsified data, but the ambiguous wording of the notices leaves us wondering if they are implying more than they state.

Two of the papers appeared in the journal Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology. The notices in ATVB implicate a researcher named Lian Zuo, who worked in Emory’s division of cardiology.

Here’s one: Continue reading Data fraud at Emory leads to retractions of three cardiology papers

More details emerge on ScienceBlogs-National Geographic deal

Yesterday, we reported that National Geographic had bought ScienceBlogs. We’ve now obtained a recording of a conference call between various members of National Geographic senior management, ScienceBlogs management, and ScienceBloggers — aka Sciblings — that adds some details.

What we’ve learned is that Nat Geo plans to assume control of operations, editorial content, and ad sales by June 1 of this year. And while a post from PZ Myers post said “basically, we’ve been bought,” and we had further confirmation last night of the contents of yesterday’s post from someone familiar with the situation, we want to make sure to point out, high up, that one of the first things that SEED CFO and vice president of finance and operation’s Vera Scavcic said on the call was that SEED would maintain ownership: Continue reading More details emerge on ScienceBlogs-National Geographic deal

So who bought ScienceBlogs? Retraction Watch exclusive: National Geographic

This afternoon, PZ Myers, of the wildly popular Pharyngula blog on ScienceBlogs, started a post with a few lines that set science writers on Twitter abuzz:

I have news. Scienceblogs is going to be folded into a new organization sometime soon — basically, we’ve been bought. I can’t discuss all of the details just yet, but let’s just say it is a prestigious national magazine with a healthy bottom line that will do us a lot of good.

Retraction Watch has learned, from a source familiar with the negotiations, that the buyer is National Geographic. We don’t have any details at this point, and Nat Geo has not returned a request for comment [see update at end], but we are confident in reporting this.

Readers may recall PepsiGate, Continue reading So who bought ScienceBlogs? Retraction Watch exclusive: National Geographic

Science publishes replication of Marc Hauser study, says results hold up

There has been some news over the past few weeks about Marc Hauser, the Harvard psychologist found guilty of misconduct by the university last year. First, because Harvard had listed him in a course catalog, The Crimson said that he might be teaching again, following a ban. But that turned out not to be the case, as The Boston Globe reported.

Today, Science lifted the embargo on a paper by Hauser and Justin Wood, now of the University of Southern California, showing that results published in the journal in 2007 — and later questioned — have held up. The abstract: Continue reading Science publishes replication of Marc Hauser study, says results hold up

Duplicate publication and apparent guest authorship force retractions of two math papers

Two math journals have recently retracted two papers that share most of their text — and their first author.

The two papers were “Unsteady flows of an Oldroyd-B fluid in a cylindrical domain for a given shear stress,” in Applied Mathematics and Computation, and “A note on longitudinal flows of an Oldroyd-B fluid due to a prescribed shear stress,” in Mathematical and Computer Modelling. The studies were published online last year, but hadn’t made it into a print issue yet.

Both retraction notices, which appeared within the space of a few weeks in late February and early March, say the same thing — that is to say, nothing at all, really:

This article has been withdrawn at the request of the author(s) and/or editor. The Publisher apologizes for any inconvenience this may cause. The full Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal can be found at http://www.elsevier.com/locate/withdrawalpolicy.

So what was wrong with the original reports? Continue reading Duplicate publication and apparent guest authorship force retractions of two math papers

Update: After unexplained delay, Cell Cycle retracts paper related to work that formed the basis of anti-cancer company

In December, we reported on the retraction of a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on a potential treatment for breast cancer. We later found out that the retracted research was part of the basis of a company that had an initial public offering a few weeks later. How the company dealt with the news of the retraction made for an interesting follow-up, and speaks well of the principles of the principals.

Here’s another follow-up. The retraction notice has now appeared of a related review in Cell Cycle that we reported would be withdrawn. Here’s the text: Continue reading Update: After unexplained delay, Cell Cycle retracts paper related to work that formed the basis of anti-cancer company

Physics Letters A paper gets retracted twice, but the issues remain “unsettled”

A retraction with a complex and yet unclear narrative appears in the April 25, 2011 issue of Physics Letters A. According to the notice, for “Nuclear spin magnetic resonance force microscopy using slice modulation:”

This article has been retracted at the request of the Editors of Physics Letters A because there are unsettled issues on how the research was carried out, how the data were acquired and analyzed. The article was removed from the journal issue before printing although it appeared online. In addition, the article was accidentally published online twice in the same journal.

As the notice suggests, this was actually the second retraction, of the same paper. Here was the first, in 2008, shortly after the paper was published. And here is a removal notice, from later that year. We haven’t come across such an occurrence before, although we’ve been writing Retraction Watch for less than a year.

There are six editors of Physics Letters A, and we tried them all for comment on the “unsettled issues.” A few pointed to Burkhard Fricke, the communicating editor for the paper, who is no longer with the journal. He didn’t respond to requests for more information.

A few referred us to Karine van Wetering, a publisher at Elsevier: Continue reading Physics Letters A paper gets retracted twice, but the issues remain “unsettled”

Semen editorial costs Greenfield presidency of American College of Surgeons

courtesy University of Michigan

As we reported nearly two weeks ago, the eminent surgeon Lazar Greenfield recently lost his position as editor-in-chief of Surgery News over a Valentine’s Day editorial that some readers, particularly women, found offensive.  Surgery News is an in-house publication of the American College of Surgeons (although it’s published by Elsevier), and Greenfield was scheduled to take the gavel in October as the new president of the college.

No longer.

As two Retraction Watch readers have noted tonight, the surgery group has notified its members that Greenfield has stepped down from his official position with college. Here’s the letter that was sent today: Continue reading Semen editorial costs Greenfield presidency of American College of Surgeons

Want to avoid a retraction? Hire a medical writer, say medical writers

A team of Australian medical writers who  analyzed four decades worth of retractions has reached the conclusion — we trust you’re sitting — that people in their profession are more honest than, well, the rest of us.

According to the authors,  articles in the medical literature are substantially less likely than other papers to be retracted for any reason, including mistakes or misconduct, if they have a medical writer as a declared co-author. The same applies for articles produced with the help of drug and device makers, either financial support or authorship assistance, the study found. And when both occur, retractions are vanishingly rare. Indeed, they found no instance of a retraction resulting from misconduct.

The study, which appears in Current Medical Research & Opinion, has flaws, which we’ll lay out in a minute. Continue reading Want to avoid a retraction? Hire a medical writer, say medical writers

Why was that paper retracted? Peer-reviewed evidence that Retraction Watch isn’t crazy

Retraction Watch readers will no doubt have realized by now that we are often frustrated by the opacity of many of the retraction notices we cover. And some critics may wonder if we’re overstating that case.

Well, wonder no more.

In a study published online yesterday in the Journal of Medical Ethics, Liz Wager and Peter Williams looked at retractions from 1988 to 2008. Their findings: Continue reading Why was that paper retracted? Peer-reviewed evidence that Retraction Watch isn’t crazy