And then there were eight: Three more retractions for Alirio Melendez, all in the Journal of Immunology

Alirio Melendez, who has already retracted five papers and was found by one of his former universities to have committed misconduct on more than 20, has three more retractions.

Here’s the notice for “Antisense Knockdown of Sphingosine Kinase 1 in Human Macrophages Inhibits C5a Receptor-Dependent Signal Transduction, Ca²⁺ Signals, Enzyme Release, Cytokine Production, and Chemotaxis,” cited 68 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge:

Mean streets: Expert on lying accuses planning association of ethical lapses

A U.K. urban planner and self-styled expert on “truth and lying” has launched a forceful attack on the ethics of a key trade association, accusing it of refusing to promote his work for fear that the findings might be damaging to the profession.

And what, you’re asking, does this have to do with retractions? Trust us. This story’s harder to follow than a New Jersey left turn ramp — but we think you’ll enjoy it.

As a road map, here are a few key players in the drama:

Double bind: Duplication of bandaging paper leads to retraction

The Journal of Vascular Surgery is retracting — with vigor — a paper it published online in March after discovering that the authors had published essentially the same article for the Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology some months earlier.

Both papers are titled “Randomized controlled trial comparing treatment outcome of two compression bandaging systems and standard care without compression in patients with venous leg ulcers.” The work was funded by the Health, Welfare and Food Bureau of Hong Kong and a grant from Lohmann & Rauscher GmbH & Co KG, a German company that makes compression bandages and other surgical supplies.

According to the retraction notice in JVS:

Journal “mistake” forces removal of toxicology study by leading scientist

We’ve seen this movie before: Researchers present a study at a scientific meeting, then learn to their surprise (and, sometimes, chagrin) that a journal has published the data in a supplement or other edition.

That’s the case with a group of UK scientists whose abstract for a meeting of the British Toxicology Society wound up in the journal Toxicology — only to be expunged when they complained.

The work was titled “Molecular mechanisms involved in resistance of CLL cells towards ABT-737, a specific BCL-2 inhibitor.” Gerald Cohen, of the University of Leicester, who led the study, told us:

Retraction for prostate cancer paper duplication leaves authors penitent, “happy”

Perhaps fittingly in today’s age of sensitive feelings, the typical reaction to a retraction (per the notices, at least) is apology. But bliss?

Expert Opinion on Investigational Drugs has a new one in the annals of penitence. At issue is a 2010 paper titled “Horizon scanning for novel therapeutics for the treatment of prostate cancer,” by Dieletta Bianchini. Turns out the authors had published the same (or nearly so) paper two months earlier in a different journal. Here’s the notice:

ORI findings lead to two retractions — nearly 17 years later

Well, it only took 17 years.

As two retraction notices in the September 15 issue of the Journal of Immunology note:

On October 19, 1995, the Office of Research Integrity at the National Institutes of Health found that Weishu Y. Weiser, Ph.D., formerly of the Harvard Medical School at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, committed scientific misconduct by falsifying data in biomedical research supported by two Public Health Service grants. As a result, she agreed to submit a letter to The Journal of Immunology to retract this article. The offices of The Journal of Immunology have no record of receiving such a letter and hence the article is now being retracted.

The retractions, for “Recombinant Migration Inhibitory Factor Induces Nitric Oxide Synthase in Murine Macrophages” and “Human Recombinant Migration Inhibitory Factor Activates Human Macrophages to Kill Leishmania donovani,” both say the same thing.

“Recombinant Migration Inhibitory Factor Induces Nitric Oxide Synthase in Murine Macrophages” has been  cited 66 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge — 40 of those times since the ORI’s report was released. The numbers for the Leishmania paper are almost identical:

Fifth Alirio Melendez retraction offers clues about University of Glasgow misconduct findings

A new retraction — his fifth — in the Journal of Immunology for Alirio Melendez, formerly of the National University of Singapore, the University of Glasgow, and the University of Liverpool, sheds some light on the results of an investigation by one of the universities.

Last month, a Glasgow spokesperson told Nature that the university’s investigation had been completed in October 2011, but that it did not comment on individual cases. A spokesperson, according to the Times Higher Education:

…would say only that there was “no evidence that our current staff contributed, falsified or duplicated data to any publications co-authored with (Professor) Melendez”. He also confirmed that relevant journals would be contacted where retractions or corrections were deemed necessary.

The notice for one such necessary retraction, in the September 15 issue of the Journal of Immunology, gives a few details:

Glasgow’s Beatson Institute investigating circumstances of Cell retraction for inappropriate images

The Beatson Institute for Cancer Research in Glasgow, Scotland is looking into how inappropriate images ended up in a Cell paper that has just been retracted.

Here’s the notice for the paper by Lynne Marshall, Niall S. Kenneth, and Robert J. White:

University College London mitochondrial biologist resigns after three retractions for image fraud

Courtesy Nature Publishing Group

A biologist at University College London (UCL) has resigned his post and taken responsibility for “inappropriate figures manipulations” in three now-retracted papers.

Assegid Garedew, formerly a senior research investigator in Salvador Moncada‘s group, stepped down earlier this summer in the midst of an investigation that should be completed soon, Moncada tells Retraction Watch.

The three retraction notices for papers by Garedew and colleagues are all similar.

From Cell Metabolism: “Mitochondrial Dynamics, Biogenesis, and Function Are Coordinated with the Cell Cycle by APC/C^CDH1“, cited once, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge:

Retraction number four appears in PNAS for work of Alirio Melendez, who has resigned post at U Liverpool

Alirio Melendez, who has had three of his papers retracted amidst suspicions about 70, has had another one retracted, this one in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). And he has also resigned from his post at the University of Liverpool, we have just learned.

Here’s the notice: