This summer, Ottawa Citizen reporter Tom Spears was sitting by a lake on vacation when he opened a spam email from a publisher. Amused to see the sender was a journal focused on bioethics, he got an idea. I thought, what if I just throw something outrageous at them? The situation should sound familiar to readers who … Continue reading Surprise! Paper retracted after author tells journal it’s a “pile of dung”
Last year, a cancer researcher wrote to the Journal of Biological Chemistry, asking to correct one of his papers. The journal responded by requesting the raw data used to prepare his figures. Then, in a follow-up request, it asked for raw data behind the figures in 20 additional published articles. And when all was said and … Continue reading How a researcher’s request to correct one paper turned into 19 retractions
A study linking vaccines to autism and other neurological problems has been removed by a Frontiers journal after receiving heavy criticism since it was accepted last week. The abstract — published online in Frontiers in Public Health after being accepted November 21 — reported findings from anonymous online questionnaires completed by 415 mothers of home-schooled children 6-12 years … Continue reading Study linking vaccines to autism pulled following heavy criticism
The week at Retraction Watch featured the story of a graduate student who fought back after being caught in the middle of a fraud case, and the retraction of a hotly debated paper from Nature Cell Biology. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
A plastic surgery journal in India has retracted an article about rehabilitation following removal of an eye after a patient contacted the editors to say she hadn’t consented to publish her picture. Mukund Jagannathan, the journal’s editor-in-chief and a plastic surgeon in India, told Retraction Watch: The patient wrote to the editor, mentioning that her … Continue reading Patient didn’t okay including her picture in plastic surgery paper
Three psychiatric studies of children contained a myriad of problems that may have put participants at greater risk than was disclosed by consent forms, according to a 2014 letter sent to hundreds of the participants and their families. Through a public records request, we’ve obtained a copy of the letter — which lists a host of problems in … Continue reading Study errors “may have placed you or your child at a greater risk of harm”: 2014 letter to parents
Last week, we learned a 2016 paper heavily discussed on PubPeer might be retracted — today, we learned that Nature Cell Biology has indeed pulled the paper, citing inappropriate image modifications. As we reported last week, a comment on PubPeer flagged as coming from an author said they had requested a retraction. A representative of National … Continue reading Nature Cell Biology retracts hotly debated cancer paper
The week at Retraction Watch featured news of a publisher hack, and a story about a Nature Cell Biology paper likely headed for retraction. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
A publisher in the Netherlands has retracted 13 published studies and withdrawn 52 that were under consideration (but not yet published) after learning that someone illegally accessed its workflows to add fake authors and manipulate text. According to Seyyed Mohammad Miri, the founder, CEO, and managing director of Kowsar Publishing, the 13 retracted papers all included extra authors … Continue reading Scientific publisher hacked, affecting 65 papers
A new letter signed by 20 researchers is casting additional doubts on the validity of a potentially invaluable lab tool — and alleges the lab that produced the initial results turned them away when they tried to replicate its findings in mammalian cells. In a letter published this week in Protein & Cell, the researchers … Continue reading More questions arise over gene-editing tool