Search Results for: medical

Caught Our Notice: 4th retraction for peer reviewer who stole manuscript

Title: Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, diet and gut microbiota What Caught Our Attention: The paper was co-authored by Carmine Finelli, who in the past took responsibility for a dramatic transgression: Stealing material from an unpublished manuscript by one of its reviewers. After the paper that stole from the manuscript was retracted in 2016, Finelli earned a second retraction … Continue reading Caught Our Notice: 4th retraction for peer reviewer who stole manuscript

Swedish review board finds misconduct by Macchiarini, calls for six retractions

An ethical review board in Sweden is asking journals to retract six papers co-authored by former star surgeon Paolo Macchiarini, after concluding that he and his co-authors committed misconduct. One of the papers is the seminal 2011 article in The Lancet, which described the first case of a transplant using an artificial trachea seeded with … Continue reading Swedish review board finds misconduct by Macchiarini, calls for six retractions

Science retracts paper after Nobel laureate’s lab can’t replicate results

Science is retracting a 2014 paper from the lab of a Nobel winner after replication attempts failed to conclusively support the original results. In January, Bruce Beutler, an immunologist at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and winner of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, emailed Science editor-in-chief Jeremy Berg to report that … Continue reading Science retracts paper after Nobel laureate’s lab can’t replicate results

Widely used U.S. government database delists cancer journal

The U.S. government biomedical research database MEDLINE no longer includes a cancer journal with a storied past. Starting August 2017, researchers looking up journals indexed in MEDLINE (which is accessed via PubMed) could no longer find new articles published by Oncotarget, once included on the now-defunct list of possibly predatory journals compiled by librarian Jeffrey … Continue reading Widely used U.S. government database delists cancer journal

Caught Our Notice: Is “miscommunication of the rejection” the new euphemism for “paper accepted”?

When Retraction Watch began in 2010, our co-founders Ivan Oransky and Adam Marcus quickly realized they couldn’t keep up with the hundreds of retractions that appeared each year.  And the problem has only gotten worse — although we’ve added staff, the number of retractions issued each year has increased dramatically. According to our growing database, more than 1,300 … Continue reading Caught Our Notice: Is “miscommunication of the rejection” the new euphemism for “paper accepted”?

Florida researcher “cherry picked” data, university investigation finds

A journal has retracted a 2014 paper after a university investigation found that the first author only reported certain data points that supported the paper’s conclusion. Based on a whistleblower’s tip, the University of Florida investigated work by Huabei Jiang, a professor of biomedical engineering, and Lei Yao, a former postdoc and scientist in Jiang’s … Continue reading Florida researcher “cherry picked” data, university investigation finds

Obsessed with getting cited? You may have “Publiphilia Impactfactorius”

As a scientist, are you always focused on improving your metrics by such means as getting papers into prestigious journals? Do your funders and institutions add to that pressure to get ahead? If so, you may be at risk of a new psychiatric condition known as “Publiphilia Impactfactorius” — or, simply, PI, described in a PeerJ … Continue reading Obsessed with getting cited? You may have “Publiphilia Impactfactorius”

Ethical concerns arise for head of controversial stem cell clinic

Journals are raising ethical concerns about the research of a doctor who offers controversial embryonic stem cell treatments. Two journals have issued expressions of concern for three papers by Geeta Shroff, who was the subject of a 2012 CNN investigative documentary. All cite ethical concerns; one mentions the potential link between the procedure the authors … Continue reading Ethical concerns arise for head of controversial stem cell clinic

Caught Our Notice: Another retraction for researcher paid $100k to leave uni

When Retraction Watch began in 2010, our co-founders Ivan Oransky and Adam Marcus quickly realized they couldn’t keep up with the hundreds of retractions that appeared each year.  And the problem has only gotten worse — although we’ve added staff, the number of retractions issued each year has increased dramatically. According to our growing database, just shy of … Continue reading Caught Our Notice: Another retraction for researcher paid $100k to leave uni

Journal: Publish here, and we’ll pay you $500

A new journal is offering something we’ve never seen before: A cash reward to corresponding authors of papers it publishes. Normally, in the case of open-access journals, researchers have to pay article processing charges (APCs). But Minimally Invasive Surgical Oncology, an open-access journal launched at the end of last year, flips the typical narrative — … Continue reading Journal: Publish here, and we’ll pay you $500