Search Results for: elsevier

Dental journal pulls article for “sufficient evidence” of plagiarism

A group of dental researchers from India has lost their 2008 paper on the salubrious effects of coconut water on periodontal health. The article, “Comparison of coconut water, propolis, HBSS, and milk on PDL cell survival,” appeared in the Journal of Endodontics, an Elsevier title. It has been cited 24 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s … Continue reading Dental journal pulls article for “sufficient evidence” of plagiarism

Spreadsheet error forces loss of Appetite paper on obesity and parenting styles

The journal Appetite has retracted a recent paper that purported to show that children whose parents kept a tight fist on the grub were less likely to become obese than those whose parents were more laissez-faire with the feed bag. The article, “Relation of parenting styles, feeding styles and feeding practices to child overweight and … Continue reading Spreadsheet error forces loss of Appetite paper on obesity and parenting styles

Weekend reads: Fraudster calls himself a “foolish coward,” and COPE’s top cases

Here’s some of what crossed our desks this week: Dong Pyou Han, the former Iowa State University researcher who admitted faking the results of an HIV vaccine experiment, called himself a “foolish coward,” The Des Moines Register reported based on documents obtained from the university. Reporter Tony Leys also explored whether Han should be criminally … Continue reading Weekend reads: Fraudster calls himself a “foolish coward,” and COPE’s top cases

Journal editor defends retraction of GMO-rats study while authors reveal some of paper’s history

The debate over the retraction of a highly controversial paper on the effects of GMOs on rats continues unabated. This week, Adriane Fugh-Berman and Thomas Sherman wrote on the Hastings Center website that

Fraud topples second neuroscience word processing paper

We have a second retraction from a group of neuroscience researchers in Belgium who discovered fatal errors in their work on how the brain sets about the task of reading written language. Spoiler alert: Turns out those errors weren’t errors after all. As we reported back in May, the group, from the University of Leuven, … Continue reading Fraud topples second neuroscience word processing paper

Doing the right thing: Team finds data merge error in depression paper, retracts

A team of neuroscientists from Sweden has retracted their 2013 paper in Brain, Behavior, and Immunity after discovering that they’d made a mistake while merging their data. According to the abstract, the study, “Lower CSF interleukin-6 predicts future depression in a population-based sample of older women followed for 17 years,” purported to find that:

Fourth retraction results from Cardiff investigation

Researchers have retracted a fourth paper following an investigation at Cardiff University that found evidence of image manipulation by a researcher named Rossen Donev. Here’s the notice for “The mouse complement regulator CD59b is significantly expressed only in testis and plays roles in sperm acrosome activation and motility,” a paper first published in Molecular Immunology … Continue reading Fourth retraction results from Cardiff investigation

Federal court rebuffs request to discredit article that malpractice lawyers want retracted

We’re a bit late to this, but a Federal court in Massachusetts last fall heard a medical malpractice case with fascinating implications for journals. The case involved allegations by the plaintiffs — two children who had suffered permanent birth defects and their mothers — that they had lost previous malpractice suits because a fraudulent case report … Continue reading Federal court rebuffs request to discredit article that malpractice lawyers want retracted

St. Louis Krokodil paper reappears

Earlier this month, we reported on the unexplained withdrawal of a case report from the American Journal of Medicine whose authors said they had treated a man in St. Louis who used krokodil, a homemade mixture of prescription painkillers heroin and flammable contaminants that has proven deadly in Russia. At the time, all the journal’s … Continue reading St. Louis Krokodil paper reappears

Weekend reads: Snarky acknowledgement sections, journal editors on fraud

Another busy week at Retraction Watch, beginning with a story we broke about faked HIV vaccine results that was picked up by the Des Moines Register and other outlets. Here’s what was happening elsewhere on the web: