Search Results for: medical

Division director leaving U.S. research watchdog after nearly 15 years

The director of the Division of Investigative Oversight at the U.S. Office of Research Integrity is leaving the agency. Susan Garfinkel told Retraction Watch that her last day is November 10. She is taking a position as assistant vice president in the Office of Research Compliance at The Ohio State University (OSU). Garfinkel declined to … Continue reading Division director leaving U.S. research watchdog after nearly 15 years

Swedish prosecutor won’t pursue criminal case against Macchiarini

A Swedish prosecutor has announced she won’t continue investigating a former star surgeon who has since fallen from grace. Paolo Macchiarini made a name for himself by transplanting synthetic tracheas. After multiple patients died, however, allegations against the researcher have continued to swirl. He was dismissed from the Karolinska Institutet last year, after it reopened … Continue reading Swedish prosecutor won’t pursue criminal case against Macchiarini

A journal printed a sharp critique of a paper it had published. If only it had checked with the authors first.

In 2016, researchers published a paper showing that an RNA molecule may be overactive in breast tumor tissue. But after reading the paper, three biologists believed the data supported the opposite conclusion. What happened after that is a tale of misunderstandings and unnecessarily bruised feelings. We’ve seen plenty of cases where researchers ignore criticism, which … Continue reading A journal printed a sharp critique of a paper it had published. If only it had checked with the authors first.

Society recommends 9 retractions for co-author of researcher with record number of retractions

The Japanese Society of Anesthesiologists (JSA) has requested the retraction of nine additional papers by a co-author of fraudster Yoshitaka Fujii, after investigating allegations of fraud in dozens of papers. According to the report, a committee investigated approximately 40 publications by Yuhji Saitoh of Yachiyo Medical Center and Tokyo Women’s Medical University and “identified ten publications with clear … Continue reading Society recommends 9 retractions for co-author of researcher with record number of retractions

Case report of stem cell therapy in child didn’t meet “ethical standards,” says journal

A journal has retracted a recent case report about a stem cell therapy in a child with cerebral palsy, after discovering the study failed to meet “ethical standards.” According to the journal, Regenerative Medicine, the ethical issue is that the authors failed to report the case to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare of … Continue reading Case report of stem cell therapy in child didn’t meet “ethical standards,” says journal

Early data on potential anti-cancer compound now in human trials was falsified, company admits

A pharmaceutical company has admitted that one of its former researchers falsified early data on a compound that’s designed to fight cancer, now in human trials. The data, published as an abstract in August 2015 in the journal Cancer Research, reported a therapeutic benefit of acalabrutinib in a mouse model of pancreatic cancer. The compound, … Continue reading Early data on potential anti-cancer compound now in human trials was falsified, company admits

Nature adds alert to heavily debated paper about gene editing

Nature has added an “editor’s note” to a high-profile August paper alerting readers to the fact that the article has been subject to criticism. Journals often flag papers that are being debated — what’s unusual here is that the journal doesn’t label the notice as an official “Expression of Concern,” which are indexed by PubMed. … Continue reading Nature adds alert to heavily debated paper about gene editing

So, was it plagiarism? Journal retracts three papers over “citation and attribution errors”

When several recent submissions raised a red flag, a pediatrics journal decided to investigate. The journal, Pediatrics in Review, discovered “citation and attribution errors” in three case studies, which the journal has now retracted.   Luann Zanzola, the managing editor of the journal, explained that the editors caught the errors when they scanned the three … Continue reading So, was it plagiarism? Journal retracts three papers over “citation and attribution errors”

Journal adds concern notice to paper by psychologist Jens Förster

A social psychology journal has added an expression of concern to a paper by prominent social psychologist Jens Förster, whose work has been subject to much scrutiny. This is the latest in a long-running saga involving Förster. The 2012 paper in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology had been flagged by a 2015 report describing … Continue reading Journal adds concern notice to paper by psychologist Jens Förster

Miffed at exclusion from a meta-analysis, researcher writes own “expression of concern”

On June 10, Psycho-Oncology, a journal that publishes research on the “psychological, social, behavioral, and ethical” side of cancer, received a complaint. In a letter, Ad Kaptein, a researcher at the Leiden University Medical Centre, in the Netherlands, wrote to say that a review and meta-analysis published by the journal that month hadn’t adequately cited … Continue reading Miffed at exclusion from a meta-analysis, researcher writes own “expression of concern”