NEJM paper on sleep apnea retracted when original data can’t be found

The authors of a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine are retracting it, after being unable to find data supporting a table that required corrections. Here’s the notice:

Plagiarism spat over scientific poster prep advice escalates to legal threats

Colin Purrington has developed something of a niche in the research world. While teaching evolutionary biology at Swarthmore College, Purrington began developing a how-to manual for putting together poster presentations for meetings — a pursuit that has earned him a little money and some attention. The result is a website, Designing conference posters, that, by … Continue reading Plagiarism spat over scientific poster prep advice escalates to legal threats

“What I find offensive is not that they plagiarized us, it’s that they did it so badly”

Retraction Watch readers may be familiar with the work of Brian Nosek, a University of Virginia psychologist who has taken a tough stance about many of the problems in his field and coordinates the Reproducibility Project. So it must have seemed quite ironic for Nosek and his co-authors to learn today that one of their … Continue reading “What I find offensive is not that they plagiarized us, it’s that they did it so badly”

Study finds many authors aren’t sharing data when they publish — and leads to a PLOS ONE retraction

A new study in Clinical Chemistry paints an alarming picture of how often scientists deposit data that they’re supposed to — but perhaps not surprisingly, papers whose authors did submit such data scored higher on a quality scale than those whose authors didn’t deposit their data. Ken Witwer, a pathobiologist at Hopkins, was concerned that … Continue reading Study finds many authors aren’t sharing data when they publish — and leads to a PLOS ONE retraction

First retraction for Eric Smart, who faked dozens of images, appears in PNAS

Eric Smart, who as we reported in November was sanctioned by the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) for faking dozens of images in ten papers and seven grants over the past decade, has had his first retraction. Here’s the December 24 notice, from PNAS:

The Year of the Retraction: A look back at 2011

If Retraction Watch was actually a business, as opposed — for the moment, anyway — to a labor of love for two guys with day jobs, 2011 would have been a very good year for business. It was a year that will probably see close to 400 retractions, including a number of high-profile ones, once … Continue reading The Year of the Retraction: A look back at 2011

Roundup: A new record? And paper retracts story about Canadian Paxil researcher-turned pol Kutcher

We’ve both been at conferences — Adam at the Society of Cardiovascular Anesthesiologists in Savannah, and Ivan at the Council of Science Editors in Baltimore, where he’ll be on a panel today about finding fraud — so we haven’t had a lot of time to run down retractions. But there were a few retraction-related developments … Continue reading Roundup: A new record? And paper retracts story about Canadian Paxil researcher-turned pol Kutcher

Catch Me If You Can: What happens to fake cardiologist William Hamman’s published papers?

It’s a mind-boggling story: A United Airlines pilot claims to be a cardiologist and was eagerly sought after for medical conferences at which he taught doctors teamwork. He shared millions in grants, according to the Associated Press. But as the AP reports, William Hamman wasn’t a cardiologist at all, having never even finished medical school. … Continue reading Catch Me If You Can: What happens to fake cardiologist William Hamman’s published papers?