A preprint promoted by a member of the UK Parliament for claiming to show that vitamin D led to an “80% reduction in need for ICU and a 60% reduction in deaths” has been removed from a server used by The Lancet family of journals. The preprint, “Calcifediol Treatment and COVID-19-Related Outcomes,” was posted to … Continue reading Widely shared vitamin D-COVID-19 preprint removed from Lancet server
Eight journals have corrected a total of eleven papers after one of the authors failed to list potential financial conflicts of interest. Two additional journals have also told Retraction Watch that they plan to issue corrections, which will bring the total to 13 or more. Stuart Phillips is a professor and director of the Centre … Continue reading Eleven papers corrected after nutrition prof fails to disclose patent, company ties
The authors of a 2019 meta-analysis in a JAMA journal on exercise and heart disease have retracted the paper after discovering that a quarter of the studies they’d used in the analysis did not belong. The retraction is the first for the journal, which had published some 2,800 articles before having to pull one, Frederick … Continue reading JAMA journal retracts its first paper, on exercise and heart disease
Journals have flagged more than three dozen articles by a team of authors in Iran for concern over the integrity of their data. The moves have come in the 15 months since data sleuths raised questions about the data in more than 170 papers from the group. Among the most recent moves, a nutrition journal … Continue reading Journals flag concerns in three dozen papers by nutrition researchers
A BMJ journal has retracted and replaced a paper on chronic fatigue in children after admitting that it misrepresented the nature of the research in the editing process. But the article has drawn scrutiny beyond merely the characterization of the analysis. The paper, “Cognitive–behavioural therapy combined with music therapy for chronic fatigue following Epstein-Barr virus … Continue reading BMJ journal retracts, replaces study on chronic fatigue in children
A group of obstetrics researchers in the Middle East is facing disciplinary action after questions were raised about the validity of the data in dozens of their published studies. The tale — involving contaminated clinical trials, potentially fabricated PhDs, findings of misconduct that went ignored, accusations of terrorist sympathies and unresponsive journals — requires some … Continue reading Researchers face disciplinary action as dozens of their studies fall under scrutiny
A neuroscientist who was stripped of her PhD by Danish officials as part of a case going back a decade has notched her ninth retraction — but it took a while. In 2010, following questions about her work, Milena Penkowa received a three month suspended sentence for embezzlement, document forgery, and “fabrication of evidence.” A … Continue reading Years later, researcher at center of highly publicized case has another paper retracted
A heart journal has issued an expression of concern about a 2017 paper which looks suspiciously like a 2016 article by some of the same researchers that appeared in an anesthesiology publication. The 2017 paper, “Efficacy of prophylactic dexmedetomidine in preventing postoperative junctional ectopic tachycardia after pediatric cardiac surgery,” was written by a group led … Continue reading Apparent duplication from anesthesiology journal puts heart paper into intensive care
A surgery journal has retracted seven papers by a group in South Korea after an institutional investigation found evidence of “intentional, repetitive, and serious misconduct” in the work. The articles, by a team at Ewha Womans University and Seoul National University College of Medicine, appeared in the Journal of Hand Surgery (European Volume) between 2016 … Continue reading Hand surgeon in South Korea loses seven papers for “serious misconduct”
A March 2020 paper that set off months of angry debates about whether hydroxychloroquine is effective in treating COVID-19 has “gross methodological shortcomings” that “do not justify the far-reaching conclusions about the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine in Covid-19,” according to a review commissioned by the journal that published the original work. The comments, by Frits Rosendaal, … Continue reading French hydroxychloroquine study has “major methodological shortcomings” and is “fully irresponsible,” says review, but is not being retracted