Lost in translation: Authors blame a language error for wrong diagnosis

A patient’s “unusual” brain cyst excited several researchers in China so much they published a paper about it in a major journal. Soon a reader identified a glaring mistake: the authors had described the cause of the cyst incorrectly.   A month after the paper appeared online in November 2016, the reader — a neurologist […]

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Unusual: Neurology removes author dinged for misconduct from 2016 paper

Neurology has partially retracted a 2016 paper, replacing a figure and removing the author who contributed it after he was found guilty of misconduct. The journal has replaced the figure with a new one that confirmed the findings of the original, and swapped the name of Andrew Cullinane with the scientist who constructed the new […]

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Former NIH postdoc doctored data

A genetics researcher included falsified data in two published papers, according to a report by the U.S. Office of Research Integrity (ORI) released today. At the time of the misconduct, Andrew Cullinane was a postdoctoral fellow in the Medical Genetics Branch at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI). According to his LinkedIn page, he is now an assistant professor […]

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Bone researcher up to 10 retractions

A journal is retracting three papers and a letter from a bone researcher who admitted to scientific misconduct, noting that all co-authors were included only for honorary reasons. We’ve previously reported on six retractions of papers co-authored by Yoshihiro Sato, who is based at Mitate Hospital in Japan, including one in JAMA. Retractions stemmed from the […]

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A first retraction for Einstein (no, not that one)

In 1932, Einstein famously retracted his “cosmological constant.” Now, more than 80 years later, a Brazilian healthcare journal bearing his name has retracted its first paper. The authors of the review, about the effects of neuromuscular electrical stimulation in hospitalized patients on ventilators, appear to made the genius move of trying to publish their paper […]

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Shingles-stroke connection paper earns expression of concern for “errors in data presentation”

The journal Neurology has issued an expression of concern for a paper linking shingles and stroke, which got press attention when it was published. The journal’s note refers to “errors of data presentation,” which author Judith Breuer more narrowly defined as mistakes during transcription of a table. It’s unclear whether the results themselves – that herpes zoster, the virus […]

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Parkinson’s researcher to appear in court to face fraud charges

A researcher in Australia who has had several papers retracted following an investigation by her former employer is now facing fraud and other charges. As The Guardian reports: A former University of Queensland academic accused of fabricating research that claimed a breakthrough in treating Parkinson’s disease has been charged with fraud. The Crime and Corruption […]

U. Illinois chancellor earns mega-correction for duplicate publication

Phyllis Wise, the chancellor of the University of Illinois and an obstetrics researcher, has called for a massive correction of a 2006 paper in Neuroscience for work she appears to have tried to pass off as having been previously unpublished — but which wasn’t. The article, “Estrogen therapy: Does it help or hurt the adult […]

Journal makes it official, retracting controversial autism-vaccine paper

A little more than a month after removing a highly criticized article that claimed the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine increased the risk of autism in African American boys, Translational Neurodegeneration has officially retracted the paper. Here’s the notice, dated yesterday: The Editor and Publisher regretfully retract the article [1] as there were undeclared competing interests on […]

Tonic-clonic stats error sinks epilepsy paper

A brain imaging study in children with epilepsy has been retracted by the Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging due to a statistics error. Here’s the notice for “Microstructural Brain Abnormalities of Children of Idiopathic Generalized Epilepsy With Generalized Tonic-Clonic Seizure: A Voxel-Based Diffusional Kurtosis Imaging Study”: The above article, published online on 3 May 2014 in Wiley […]