Retraction record broken, again: University report should up Fujii total to 183

Keeping up with the various investigations into the activities of Yoshitaka Fujii — the assumed record holder for retractions by a single author, with 172 likely — can be a challenge. Between the journals pulling his papers and the institutions looking into his misconduct, it’s hard to keep everything straight.

But we have a new report, from a past employer, that makes for interesting reading and helps tie up some loose ends. The document is from Tsukuba University, where Fujii worked more than a decade ago when questions about the propriety of his findings first surfaced.

After retracted study’s cited, editors ask, “time to add scientific integrity to the downside of print on paper?”

As we — and others — have written, retracted articles don’t necessarily creep off to some little island somewhere never to be heard from again. After all, the electronic versions of about a third of retracted papers aren’t marked as retracted. Sometimes, like Napoleon, those papers return from exile to wreak havoc: They get cited as if they had never been retracted.

To wit: The Journal of Neurosurgical Anesthesiology has published a letter to the editor regarding a 2012 article by a group of Italian researchers. The topic of the paper in question was “Perioperative pregabalin for postoperative pain control and quality of life after major spinal surgery.”

That happens to have been an area of interest for one Scott Reuben, a Massachusetts anesthesiologist and pain specialist turned federal inmate who was,

Expressions of regret: group retracts sedation paper for stolen words, data

A group of researchers in China have retracted a 2011 article in Acta Pharmacologica Sinica, the official journal of the Chinese Pharmacological Society, acknowledging that they lifted text and results from a previously published paper from other researchers.

The paper was titled “Lipid metabolism disturbances and AMPK activation in prolonged propofol-sedated rabbits under mechanical ventilation.”

According to the notice:

Anesthesia journal retracts paper from Estonian researchers in wake of legal inquiry

Acta Anaesthesiologica Scandinavica has retracted a 2008 paper by a group of Estonian researchers who appear to have wound up in legal jeopardy for misrepresenting their work.

Here’s the notice:

Boldt inquiry concludes: False findings in at least 10 studies, but no harm to patients

Ludwigshafen Hospital, via Wikimedia http://bit.ly/Qnt9wS

It has been a while since we heard about Joachim Boldt, the German anesthesiologist whose 90-odd retractions briefly put him at the top of the heap until Yoshitaka Fujii kicked him off earlier this year.

Now, Boldt’s former institution, the Klinikum Ludwigshafen, has released a report on its investigation into the disgraced critical care expert, and the results aren’t pretty. Here’s a press release about the report, in its entirety:

Does anesthesiology have a problem? Final version of report suggests Fujii will take retraction record, with 172

Japanese investigators have concluded that Yoshitaka Fujii, an expert in postoperative nausea and vomiting whose findings drew scrutiny in 2000 but who continued to publish prolifically for a decade after, fabricated his results in at least 172 published studies.

That number nearly doubles that of the current unofficial retraction record holder, Joachim Boldt.

An inquiry by the Japanese Society of Anesthesiologists (JSA) has determined that Fujii, who was fired in February from his post at Toho University, falsified data in 172 of 212 papers published between 1993 and 2011. Investigators said they found no evidence of fraud in three of the papers, but could not determine whether the results reported in the remaining 37 were reliable.

Of the 172 bogus studies, 126 involved randomized controlled trials. Investigators believe this was not a coincidence:

Report: Fujii faked data in at least 172 papers

A Japanese web site is reporting that Yoshitaka Fujii, a Japanese anesthesiologist suspected of widespread data fabrication, did indeed fake his results in at least 172 published studies.

According to the article, on a site called Jiji Press:

Is post-hoc statistical analysis the new fraud detection tool? A new review looks at fraudster Reuben’s work

In the beginning, there was Scott Reuben.

Well, not quite. Reuben, a Massachusetts anesthesiologist who fabricated data and briefly topped our list of most-retracted authors, didn’t invent research fraud, although he did spend six months in federal prison for his crimes. But his case was in no small measure responsible for the birth of this blog, and, well, the rest of human history that followed.

Although Reuben’s retractions are behind him now — his count ends at 22 — and other scientists, including two anesthesiologists, Joachim Boldt and Yoshitaka Fujii, have or likely soon will dramatically eclipsed his mark, a new paper has revisited his publications with an eye toward seeing if they could identify statistical evidence of data manipulation. It’s the same  kind of effort that Ed Yong highlighted as noteworthy about the Dirk Smeesters case, which we covered yesterday and which involved an anonymous statistically inclined whistleblower.

Before we get to whether there was evidence of such manipulation

193 papers could be retracted: Journal consortium issues ultimatum in Fujii case

A group of editors representing nearly two dozen medical journals has issued an ultimatum of sorts to officials at seven Japanese institutions that once employed Yoshitaka Fujii: Validate the papers of the disgraced anesthesiologist or they will be retracted.

Fujii, as we have reported, was fired by Toho University in late February, putatively for failing to obtain ethics approval for a handful of his studies. That much may be true, but the integrity of his data has been in question for more than a decade. At the time of his dismissal, journal editors expressed concern that the university would not pursue an inquiry into Fujii’s data.

Last month, the journal Anaesthesia published a statistical analysis of Fujii’s research bya UK anesthesiologist named John Carlisle which cast serious doubt on the veracity of the studies.

The joint letter forces the question.

Update on Fujii: Anesthesia journal finds overwhelming statistical evidence of data fabrication

There’s a bit more this afternoon on the story of Yoshitaka Fujii, the Japanese anesthesiologist accused of fraud and other misconduct that we reported on yesterday.

The British journal Anaesthesia, which has been looking into Fujii’s research record, has posted four articles and editorials about the case and related issues on its website. One in particular is remarkable for its conclusions. Written by a UK anesthesiologist named John Carlisle, the article claims to have analyzed 169 randomized controlled trials that Fujii conducted between 1991 and 2011.

According to the abstract (which we formatted for readability, and which should be online shortly, we’re told):