–The editors of the two top UK medical journals are in a bitter fight over statins. The editors of the two top medical journals in the UK are at war over statins. The bitter fight has its origins in the 2014 publication in the BMJ of two articles that were highly critical of statins. Rory…
Bad News Bears: After Scary Headlines Some Patients Stopped Taking Statins
June 28, 2016 by 2 Comments
Study provokes discussion about the responsibilities of medical journals and the general media. A new study and surrounding discussion raises important questions about the role and responsibility of researchers, editors, and journalists when tackling topics with potentially life-affecting consequences. The new study, published in the BMJ, found that many people stopped taking statins in the…
PNAS Paper By Prominent Cardiologist And Dean Retracted
April 6, 2016 by Leave a Comment
A 2002 PNAS paper has been retracted by its authors, including senior author Pascal Goldschmidt, a prominent cardiologist and Dean of the University of Miami School of Medicine. News of the retraction was reported by Retraction Watch on Tuesday. The paper, “Deficient Smad7 expression: A putative molecular defect in scleroderma,”has been cited 198 times, Retraction Watch reported. Here is…
The Shaky Scientific Edifice: Watching Retracted And Unretracted Papers
September 22, 2015 by Leave a Comment
The good news is that retracted papers really are worse than papers that have not been retracted. The bad news is that unretracted papers still have plenty of problems. That’s the inevitable conclusion of a fascinating new paper from Darrel Francis’s group in the UK. In the past few years the same group has exposed fraud and…
Paper Behind The Green Coffee Bean Diet Craze Retracted
October 21, 2014 by Leave a Comment
The “scientific” paper that helped ignite the green coffee bean diet craze has been retracted. The details of the retraction and the full background of the story were fully reported by Ivan Oransky on Retraction Watch. The paper, published in Diabetes, Metabolic Syndrome and Obesity: Targets and Therapy, purported to report the substantial weight loss findings of a randomized, double-blind,…
New England Journal Of Medicine Declines To Retract Papers From Disgraced Research Group
September 26, 2014 by 2 Comments
Like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the two New England Journal of Medicine papers by disgraced Dutch researcher Don Poldermans will never stand straight. But like the famous Tower they are also unlikely to topple anytime soon. Without attracting a lot of attention, back in August the NEJM editors decided not to retract the papers or publish an expression…
The Complicated Story Behind Yet Another Disappeared Article At A Top Heart Journal
August 12, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Once again the European Heart Journal has “unpublished” an article without any notice of retraction or explanation. Strangely, the article– Russian science through the prism of intelligence: is fraud still possible?– can still be viewed (at least for now) with a vestigial URL , but it can not be found through the usual channels on the journal site. The pages for the story…
No Retraction For You! Review Panel Exonerates Medical Journal In Statin Kerfuffle
August 2, 2014 by Leave a Comment
An independent review panel has rejected a demand by a prominent researcher that TheBMJ retract two controversial articles. The report largely exonerates the journal’s editors from any wrongdoing. As previously reported, Rory Collins, a prominent researcher and head of the Cholesterol Treatment Trialists’ (CTT) Collaboration, had demanded that TheBMJ retract two articles that were highly critical of statins. Although TheBMJ issued a correction…
BMJ Articles Critical Of Statins Provoke Kerfuffle
May 14, 2014 by Leave a Comment
The authors of two BMJ articles have withdrawn statements about the adverse effects of statins. The two papers inaccurately cite an earlier publication and therefore overstate the incidence of adverse effects of statins. As a result, the two papers have drawn much criticism and set off a kerfuffle involving the editor of BMJ and a prominent British trialist who is demanding…
Circulation Retracts Paper By Stem Cell Pioneer And Its Own Editor
April 8, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Following an investigation by Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital a 2012 paper published in Circulation has been retracted. The “institutional review… determined that the data are sufficiently compromised that a retraction is warranted.” The two senior authors of the paper are Piero Anversa, a pioneering researcher in cardiac stem cells, and Joseph Loscalzo, the editor-in-chief of Circulation and the…
3 More Retractions For Emory Cardiology Group
December 26, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Three more articles from R. Wayne Alexander’s research group at Emory have been retracted in the last two months. Three papers were retracted in 2011, bringing the group’s current total to 6. (News about the recent retractions was first reported on Retraction Watch.) … Click here to read the full post on Forbes. R Wayne Alexander …
Scrutiny Of Sodium Meta-Analysis In Heart Uncovers Duplicated And Missing Data
May 3, 2013 by Leave a Comment
A meta-analysis published in the journal Heart has been retracted. As Adam Marcus writes in Retraction Watch, the retraction occurred when the journal editors learned “that two of the six studies included in the review contained duplicated data. Those studies, it so happens, were conducted by one of the co-authors [of the meta-analysis].” The article,…
A Closer Look At A Case Of Duplicate Publication In JACC
April 10, 2013 by 2 Comments
The Journal of the American College of Cardiology has published a Notice of Duplication about a review article written by a respected European cardiology researcher who has played a central role in the development of fractional flow reserve (FFR). The brief statement from JACC provides few details and could lead to various interpretations, but a further investigation suggests that the story may…
Plagiarism Of Hypertension Article In Korean Journal Results In Retraction
September 6, 2012 by 2 Comments
In response to evidence of plagiarism in a review article in the Korean Circulation Journal, the article has now been retracted by the journal. Here is the notice: On July 31, 2011, Korean Circulation Journal (KCJ) published a review article by Park et al.1)regarding the J-curve in hypertension and coronary artery diseases. However, a possibility of plagiarism has…
Guest Post: After an Unprecedented Request for a Retraction, A Close Look at the Data
April 13, 2012 by 3 Comments
Editor’s Note: The following guest post is published with the permission of its author, Edward J. Schloss, MD, (Twitter ID @EJSMD) the medical director of cardiac electrophysiology at Christ Hospital in Cincinnati, OH. After an Unprecedented Request for a Retraction, A Close Look at the Data by Edward J Schloss MD Last week, St. Jude Medical took…
Prominent Japanese Cardiologist Accused of Scientific Misconduct
March 13, 2012 by 3 Comments
Following accusations by independent bloggers in Japan and Germany, the American Heart Association (AHA) has issued an Expression of Concern about five papers published in AHA journals co-authored by Hiroaki Matsubara, a prominent cardiologist and researcher at Kyoto Prefectural University in Japan. In addition to his many papers exploring the basic science of the renin-angiotensin system, Matsubara…
Japanese Researcher With Harvard Connections Retracts 3 Articles in AHA Journals
February 15, 2012 by 1 Comment
Akio Kawakami, a well published lipid researcher at Tokyo Medical and Dental University, has retracted 3 papers from AHA journals, including one article in AHA’s flagship journal Circulation. News of the retractions was first reported on Retraction Watch. Two of Kawakami’s co-authors are well known researchers affiliated with Harvard University and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Peter Libby and…
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