We’ve learned a lot about retractions in 2012, from the fact that most retractions are due to misconduct to the effects they can have on funding. We’ve seen eyebrow-raising reasons for retractions, from a hack of Elsevier’s peer review system to a researcher peer reviewing his own papers, to massive fraud in psychology to a … Continue reading How many retractions were there in 2012? And, some shattered records
As we — and others — have written, retracted articles don’t necessarily creep off to some little island somewhere never to be heard from again. After all, the electronic versions of about a third of retracted papers aren’t marked as retracted. Sometimes, like Napoleon, those papers return from exile to wreak havoc: They get cited … Continue reading After retracted study’s cited, editors ask, “time to add scientific integrity to the downside of print on paper?”
We’ve had a few unofficial record-holders here at Retraction Watch. The current leader in the retraction column, for example, is Yoshitaka Fujii, who will likely retract 172 papers. He took that record from Joachim Boldt, with just shy of 90. Today, we’ll take a stab at another record, longest time between publication and retraction. The … Continue reading And the winner for longest time on record between publication and retraction is…
A group of researchers in China have retracted a 2011 article in Acta Pharmacologica Sinica, the official journal of the Chinese Pharmacological Society, acknowledging that they lifted text and results from a previously published paper from other researchers. The paper was titled “Lipid metabolism disturbances and AMPK activation in prolonged propofol-sedated rabbits under mechanical ventilation.” … Continue reading Expressions of regret: group retracts sedation paper for stolen words, data
We didn’t plan it this way, but our second anniversary gift came a few days early this week, when we learned that a retraction notice had cited us. Given that the traditional second anniversary gift is cotton, and we’re really not sure what to do with that information, we’re much happier — and humbled — … Continue reading Happy second anniversary, Retraction Watch: Plus, our plans for year three
Japanese investigators have concluded that Yoshitaka Fujii, an expert in postoperative nausea and vomiting whose findings drew scrutiny in 2000 but who continued to publish prolifically for a decade after, fabricated his results in at least 172 published studies. That number nearly doubles that of the current unofficial retraction record holder, Joachim Boldt. An inquiry … Continue reading Does anesthesiology have a problem? Final version of report suggests Fujii will take retraction record, with 172
In the beginning, there was Scott Reuben. Well, not quite. Reuben, a Massachusetts anesthesiologist who fabricated data and briefly topped our list of most-retracted authors, didn’t invent research fraud, although he did spend six months in federal prison for his crimes. But his case was in no small measure responsible for the birth of this … Continue reading Is post-hoc statistical analysis the new fraud detection tool? A new review looks at fraudster Reuben’s work
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 … Continue reading PLoS ONE expresses concern over flu vaccine paper
Circulation has retracted four articles by a pediatric cardiologist in Japan who failed to obtain ethics approval for the studies in question but evidently lied about it to the journal. The researcher, Hideaki Senzaki, of Saitama Medical University, is a highly-published investigator who trained for a time with at Johns Hopkins. According to the Circulation … Continue reading Circulation retracts four papers by author who misled on IRB approval
A new paper by Chicago pharmacy researchers suggests that researchers performing drug studies are more likely to commit fraud than are their colleagues in the rest of biomedicine. In the paper, “Retraction Publications in the Drug Literature,” which appears in Pharmacotherapy, Jennifer C. Samp, Glen T. Schumock, and A. Simon Pickard take a look at … Continue reading Is misconduct more likely in drug trials than in other biomedical research?