Updated: Slate retracts story on Glenn McGee and Celltex following lawsuit threats, as McGee resigns from company

Slate has retracted a story about controversial bioethicist Glenn McGee and his involvement with Celltex Therapeutics, a Texas-based company that says it extracts and banks stem cells from people’s fat. Where the story by University of Minnesota bioethicist Carl Elliott once appeared now sits this editor’s note:

Climate science critic Wegman reprimanded by one university committee while another finds no misconduct

The author of a controversial and now-retracted paper questioning the science of climate change has been reprimanded by his university for plagiarism. According to USA Today’s Dan Vergano, who broke the news: [Edward] Wegman was the senior author of a 2006 report to Congress that criticized climate scientists as excessively collaborative, and found fault with … Continue reading Climate science critic Wegman reprimanded by one university committee while another finds no misconduct

Not so fast! Journal retracts paper from Boldt group over author hijinks, more

We knew we hadn’t heard the last of Joachim Boldt, whose nearly 90 retractions make him the putative record holder for a single author in this indistinguished club. But we didn’t expect this: The European Journal of Anaesthesiology has retracted a paper, “Supplemental oxygen reduces serotonin levels in plasma and platelets during colorectal surgery and … Continue reading Not so fast! Journal retracts paper from Boldt group over author hijinks, more

An arXiv for all of science? F1000 launches new immediate publication journal

Late last year, we published an invited commentary in Nature calling for science to more formally embrace post-publication peer review, and stop fetishizing the published paper. One of the models we cited was Faculty of 1000 (F1000), “in which experts flag important papers in their field.” So it’s not surprising that F1000 is announcing today … Continue reading An arXiv for all of science? F1000 launches new immediate publication journal

Resveratrol researcher Dipak Das: My lab’s work was “99% correct”

Dipak Das, the UConn red wine researcher charged by his institution with rampant misconduct that will likely lead to dozens of retractions, is evidently a 99%-er — when it comes to accuracy, that is. According to a statement purportedly from his lawyer refuting those charges, Das claims, among other things, that the output from his … Continue reading Resveratrol researcher Dipak Das: My lab’s work was “99% correct”

Chronic fatigue syndrome-XMRV paper retracted by Science, completely this time

The editors of Science have fully retracted a study they published in 2009 alleging a link between chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and the virus XMRV. The notice begins with a nod to the reasons that the paper has already been partially retracted: Science is fully retracting the Report “Detection of an infectious retrovirus, XMRV, in … Continue reading Chronic fatigue syndrome-XMRV paper retracted by Science, completely this time

Reason behind opaque Antioxidants & Redox Signaling retraction notice revealed

There’s an unhelpful retraction notice online in the journal Antioxidants & Redox Signaling, a Mary Ann Liebert publication. The paper, “Inhibition of LXRalpha-dependent steatosis and oxidative injury by liquiritigenin, a licorice flavonoid, as mediated with Nrf2 activation,” has been removed from the site, except for the abstract, which now has this in front of it: THIS WORK HAS BEEN RETRACTED … Continue reading Reason behind opaque Antioxidants & Redox Signaling retraction notice revealed

Elsevier ob-gyn journal retracted paper after legal threat

When we broke the story last week about a juicy retraction notice in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology (AJOG) — known by its readers as “the Gray Journal” — we wrote that there was more to it than we suspected. That’s an understatement. As we reported, the AJOG retracted an article that it had published … Continue reading Elsevier ob-gyn journal retracted paper after legal threat

Stapel report finds faked data in at least 30 papers, possibly more

Our comment threads lit up today with news that the interim report on the misconduct investigation into Diederik Stapel has arrived — and what it says ain’t pretty.

Retracted retraction leaves Genomics paper intact — but authors wonder if anyone will know

Last March, the journal Genomics retracted a paper, “Discovery of transcriptional regulators and signaling pathways in the developing pituitary gland by bioinformatic and genomic approaches,” for reasons that don’t really fit into a tight lede sentence. Let’s just say that at times the problems involved both questions of authorship and the validity of the research. More … Continue reading Retracted retraction leaves Genomics paper intact — but authors wonder if anyone will know