Doing the right thing: Psychology researchers retract after realizing data “were not analyzed properly”

Amid an ongoing investigation, a group of psychology researchers at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven) in Belgium have taken a painful decision to retract a paper now that they’ve realized there were serious problems with one aspect of the work.

Here’s the notice for “The Emergence of Orthographic Word Representations in the Brain: Evaluating a Neural Shape-Based Framework Using fMRI and the HMAX Model,” by Wouter Braet, Jonas Kubilius, Johan Wagemans, and Hans P. Op de Beeck:

Don’t feel so bad, The Aging Male: It happens to lots of journals

The Aging Male (the journal, not the demographic) is retracting a 2013 paper by a group of Chinese researchers who’d published the same work — more or less — in a Chinese title.

The article, “Testosterone therapy improves psychological distress and health-related quality of life in Chinese men with symptomatic late-onset hypogonadism patients,” came from a group at Peking University People’s Hospital, in Beijing.

But as the retraction notice explains:

Madoff retracts scientific paper

No, not that Madoff.

We’re talking about Robert Madoff, editor of Diseases of the Colon & Rectum. His journal is pulling a 2012 paper by a group of authors in Spain who seem to have been unable to back up their findings when they were found to contain errors.

The article, “Perianal versus endoanal application of glyceryl trinitrate 0.4% ointment in the treatment of chronic anal fissure: results of a randomized controlled trial. Is this the solution to the headaches?” looked at what evidently is a significant side effect of nitroglycerin treatment for anal fissures: headaches. According to the abstract:

Streisand Effect meets tough editors as journal retracts already-corrected paper by Rui Curi

Rui Curi — the Brazilian scientist who threatened to sue the now-shuttered Science-Fraud.org site for criticizing his work — has rung up his second retraction, this one for a paper that he corrected earlier this year.

Here’s the Journal of Endocrinology notice, whose headers and language are a bit confusing, understandably, because it is retracting two things, a correction and the original paper:

Calibration error sends moisture paper down the drain

Scientific experiments are like recipes: With the right components and the proper steps, the end result can be a thing of beauty. But if you start with a cup of salt instead of a cup of flour, well, even the neighbor’s schnauzer won’t touch that batch of sugar cookies.

That’s a little like the situation we have in “Controls on topographic dependence and temporal instability in catchment-scale soil moisture patterns,” a paper published in February in Water Resources Research by Michael Coleman and Jeffrey Niemann of Colorado State University.

According to the notice:

Retraction appears for former Case Western dermatology researcher found by ORI to have falsified data

Bryan William Doreian, who was found by the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) to have falsified data in his Case Western dissertation, has retracted a 2009 paper in Molecular Biology of the Cell also cited by the ORI.

Here’s the notice:

Spud dud, as agricultural industry potato paper gets pulled a decade after publication

Plant Physiology, the official journal of the American Society of Plant Biologists, has retracted a 2004 article by a team of ag industry researchers, including a former husband-wife duo, for what could be misconduct by the husband.

The retraction notice is vague enough, however, that we’re not entirely sure what went wrong, and no one wants to help us confirm — or even attempted to disprove — our inferences.

Trial irregularities earn Lancet study of potential weight loss drug tesofensine Expression of Concern

A potential weight loss drug has been dealt what could be a serious setback after regulators found problems at two trial sites.

While awaiting a final report, The Lancet, which published a study of the drug, tesofensine, has issued an Expression of Concern:

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:

Paper by fake cardiologist retracted

Retraction Watch readers may recall the case of William Hamman, the United Airlines pilot who claimed to be a cardiologist until the Associated Press uncovered him in late 2010. Hamman had published at least six papers, and since the revelations has had one retraction and one erratum, by our count.

Now comes another retraction, in the Journal of Patient Safety. Here’s the (paywalled) notice, signed by journal editor Charles Denham: