Weekend reads: How to squander a $10 million grant; paid to publish; funding lotteries

Before we present this week’s Weekend Reads, a question: Do you enjoy our weekly roundup? If so, we could really use your help. Would you consider a tax-deductible donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance.

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

Continue reading Weekend reads: How to squander a $10 million grant; paid to publish; funding lotteries

Remembering research integrity leader Daniel Vasgird, December 30, 1945-January 30, 2020

Daniel Vasgird

Daniel Vasgird was a well-known figure in research integrity circles. He died in late January at the age of 74. We’re honored to present a remembrance that Michael Kalichman put together to honor Vasgird’s memory at the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics (APPE) meeting next week in Atlanta.

Just a few weeks ago, the research integrity community lost a dear friend and leader. For those who did not know Dan well, it might help to describe his particular role in creating the still evolving domain of “research ethics.” 

Dan trained in social sciences, beginning with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in California at UC Riverside, followed by a move to New York, where he earned his Ph.D. in Social Psychology at Syracuse University. After completing his Ph.D., Dan accepted an NIMH post-doctoral research fellowship at Berkeley and worked in Asia as a human services educator and consultant for the federal government.

His career in research ethics began in 1988 with the New York City Department of Health. Dan both chaired the Institutional Review Board and became director of a Health Research Training Program. His career trajectory continued with City University of New York (2000-2002) where he was responsible for overseeing human research protections through 19 Institutional Research Boards, worked on developing a conflict of interest policy, and taught courses in research ethics.

Continue reading Remembering research integrity leader Daniel Vasgird, December 30, 1945-January 30, 2020

A paper on cats and female students uses up one of its nine lives

via Pixabay

Facing a social media storm, a biology journal has temporarily removed a paper arguing that the proliferation of feral cats around university campuses in China is directly related to the proportion of female students — who evidently are more welcoming than men of the wild felines.  

The article, “Where there are girls, there are cats,” appeared in Biological Conservation, launching a withering Tweet storm with, at last count, more than 275 replies. The comments ranged from incredulous to outraged, with at least one user noting that the paper was submitted, revised and accepted within a period of about 10 days.

Continue reading A paper on cats and female students uses up one of its nine lives

Fourth retraction for Haruko Obokata, focus of STAP cell scandal, after Harvard investigation

Charles Vacanti

More than five years after Nature retracted two highly suspect papers about what had been described as a major breakthrough in stem cell research, another journal has pulled a paper about the work. 

The scandal over so-called STAP stem cells took down more than just a few articles. The case centered on Haruko Obokata, a Japanese researcher who conducted the studies as a post-doc in the Harvard lab of Charles Vacanti. Obokata lost her doctoral thesis from Waseda University in 2015 because it plagiarized from the U.S. National Institutes of Health. She also retracted a paper in Nature Protocols

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Journals retract 13 papers by Hans Eysenck, flag 61, some 60 years old

Hans Eysenck

Two journals have retracted 13 papers co-authored by the late — and controversial — psychologist Hans Eysenck, following a university investigation that found dozens of his papers to be “unsafe.”

One of the journals, Perceptual and Motor Skills, subjected 36 of Eysenck’s papers to expressions of concern, while another — Psychological Reports — subjected 25 of them to the same flag. Both journals are published by SAGE.

A May 2019 report by King’s College London into the work of Eysenck and Ronald Grossarth-Maticek, apparently of the University Heidelberg, that more than two dozen papers be retracted. Among other issues, the report cited

Continue reading Journals retract 13 papers by Hans Eysenck, flag 61, some 60 years old

Harvard group retracts Nature paper

via Wikimedia

A group of researchers based at Harvard University have retracted an influential 2017 letter in Nature after a change in lab personnel led to the discovery of errors in the analysis. 

The article, “Microglia-dependent synapse loss in type I interferon-mediated lupus,” emerged from a collaboration including scientists at Harvard Medical School, the Rockefeller University in New York City, the University of Magdeburg, in Germany. 

The senior author of the research letter — which has been cited 75 times, earning it a highly cited designation from Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science — was Michael C. Carroll, a prominent immunology researcherpediatric cancer specialist. [See disclosure at the end of this post.] Also on the list was Ronald Herbst, who at the time was vice president of research at MedImmune but has since left that company for another biotech firm. The first author was Allison Bialas, at the time a post-doc at Harvard. 

According to the abstract: 

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‘Those unfortunate events:’ Second retraction for stem cell scientist in Canada accused of misconduct

McMaster’s University Hall, via Wikipedia

Citing a misconduct investigation, the journal Stem Cells has retracted a 2009 article coauthored by a researcher whose work has been under suspicion for roughly five years. 

The paper was titled “Cell adhesion and spreading affect adipogenesis from embryonic stem cells: the role of calreticulin.” The retraction notice, which is behind a paywall, states: 

Continue reading ‘Those unfortunate events:’ Second retraction for stem cell scientist in Canada accused of misconduct

Weekend reads: Highly cited scientist was manipulating citations; ‘botched and unnecessary’ operations; a flawed coronavirus study

Before we present this week’s Weekend Reads, a question: Do you enjoy our weekly roundup? If so, we could really use your help. Would you consider a tax-deductible donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance.

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

Continue reading Weekend reads: Highly cited scientist was manipulating citations; ‘botched and unnecessary’ operations; a flawed coronavirus study

Journal flags papers two years after university investigation finds researcher faked data

Daniel Antoine

Nearly two years after a University of Liverpool investigation determined that a former researcher there fabricated his data, the journal Molecular Medicine has issued expressions of concern about four papers by that researcher.

As we reported in 2018, Daniel J. Antoine — once a promising young liver specialist — was found to have made up much of his spectroscopic findings. According to the university: 

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Entire board of law journal resigns in a ‘small act of resistance’

The defense resigns.

The entire editorial board of the European Law Journal, along with its two top editors, has quit over a dispute about contract terms and the behavior of its publisher, Wiley. 

In a statement posted on the blog of the European Law Blog, editors-in-chief Joana Mendes, of the University of Luxembourg, and Harm Schepel, of the University of Kent, in England, wrote:

Continue reading Entire board of law journal resigns in a ‘small act of resistance’