Tenth retraction appears for Jesús Lemus, this one in PLOS ONE

Just two days ago, we covered the ninth retraction for Jesús Lemus, “the veterinary researcher whose work colleagues have had trouble verifying, including being unable to confirm the identity of one of his co-authors.” And already another of his retractions has appeared in one of our daily alerts.

This one appears in PLOS ONE, for “Infectious Offspring: How Birds Acquire and Transmit an Avian Polyomavirus in the Wild:”

Cossu-UCL follow-up: PLOS ONE paper to be corrected

Cossu

We have a follow-up from last week’s story about a University College London (UCL) investigation into the work of Giulio Cossu that found errors but no “deliberate intention to mislead.”UCL said it will not make the full report available:

Orangutan-Ebola link in PLOS ONE paper under scrutiny

PLOS ONE has issued a fascinating expression of concern about data collection in a paper it published late last year on the possible spread of deadly viruses among Indonesian orangutans. The case has been brought to the attention of the Indonesian government, but more on that in a moment.

The article, published last July by an international group of primate scientists led by Chairul Nidom, a virologist at Indonesia’s Airlangga University, sounded an alarm about “wild” orangutans in Borneo: Blood tests of 353 “healthy” animals showed antibodies for viruses akin to Ebola. What’s more, the filoviruses viruses to which the antibodies responded, as New Scientist and other outlets reported when the original paper came out, included strains not previously seen outside Africa (as well as Marburg, another deadly infection).

The article immediately prompted two comments. The first, by a poster called orangutanborneo, raised questions about the scale and logistics of the project:

“Unreliable” findings fell TB gene study in PLOS ONE

Here’s a nice example of how science should work.

A team of Swiss microbiologists has retracted their 2012 paper in PLoS One on the genetics of the TB mycobacterium after learning that the fusion protein they thought they’d used in their study was in fact a different molecule.

Here’s the retraction notice for the article, “A β-lactamase based reporter system for ESX dependent protein translocation in mycobacteria,” which has been cited once, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge:

Study finds many authors aren’t sharing data when they publish — and leads to a PLOS ONE retraction

A new study in Clinical Chemistry paints an alarming picture of how often scientists deposit data that they’re supposed to — but perhaps not surprisingly, papers whose authors did submit such data scored higher on a quality scale than those whose authors didn’t deposit their data.

Ken Witwer, a pathobiologist at Hopkins, was concerned that a lot of studies involving microarray-based microRNA (miRNA) weren’t complying with Minimum Information About a Microarray Experiment (MIAME) standards supposedly required by journals. So he looked at 127 such papers published between July 2011 and April 2012 in journals including PLOS ONE, the Journal of Biological Chemistry, Blood, and Clinical Chemistry, assigning each one a quality score and checking whether the authors had followed guidelines.

What he uncovered wasn’t pretty — and has already led to a retraction. From the abstract:

A pair of expressions of concern in PLOS ONE over vet science papers

PLoS ONE has issued two Expressions of Concern on unrelated studies, each of which offers plenty to be concerned about — and not just about the research itself.

One is a casualty of our old friend,  Jesús Lemus, the Spanish veterinary scientist accused of fabricating his data.

The article, titled “The PHA-Skin Test Reflects Acquired T-Cell Mediated Immunocompetence in Birds,” was published in September 2008 and cited 61 times, according to Google Scholar.

Back in April, the publisher posted this comment to the paper:

PLoS ONE retracts paper on treatment of tissue disease for lack of ethical approval, erroneous data

PLOS ONE has retracted an article it published earlier this year by a group from Australia who failed to receive adequate ethics approval for their study.

The paper, “Late Complications of Clinical Clostridium Histolyticum Collagenase Use in Dupuytren’s Disease,” came from Warren M. Rozen, Yasith Edirisinghe and John Crock (sorry, irony machine not working today). Dupuytren’s causes thickening of the fascia in the hands and often requires surgery.  In 2011 the FDA approved a treatment for the ailment that involves injections of an enzyme — Clostridium Histolyticum Collagenase, or CHC — into the affected area.

The Aussie article looked at the effects of CHC injections in 12 patients over one year, finding that two of the patients suffered

Lemus, Stapel each rack up another retraction

The retraction counts keep mounting for two Retraction Watch frequent flyers.

First, Diederik Stapel’s 26th retraction, according to our count. Psychologist Stapel admitted to making up data in dozens of studies, and is also facing a criminal inquiry for misuse of funds.

Here’s the notice:

High school whiz kid retracts PLoS ONE herd immunity paper

Georgette speaking at the Davidson Institute’s award ceremony, Library of Congress, 2008

It’s pretty impressive to publish two peer-reviewed papers on complicated vaccination models while you’re still in high school. So it’s not surprising that Nathan Georgette, who grew up outside of Jacksonville, Florida, earned a prestigious fellowship from the Davidson Institute for Talent Development.

But perhaps even more impressive is realizing you’ve made a fundamental error in one of those studies, and retracting it while you’re still a college senior at Harvard.

Feeling sheepish: Another retraction for Lemus, of study of whether livestock can spread chlamydia to birds

Jesús A. Lemus, the Spanish veterinary researcher whose work has been the subject of a misconduct inquiry, has another retraction for his CV. It’s his third, according to our count.

The newest retraction is from PLoS ONE: