Retraction
Encyclopedia
A retraction is a public statement, by the author of an earlier statement, that withdraws, cancels, refutes, diametrically reverses the original statement or ceases and desists from publishing the original statement. Retractions may or may not be accompanied by the author's further explanation as to how the original statement came to be made and/or what subsequent events, discoveries, or experiences led to the subsequent retraction. They are also in some cases accompanied by apologies for previous error and/or expressions of gratitude to persons who disclosed the error to the author.
Retractions always negate the author's previous public support for the original statement. Like original statements, retractions are in some cases incorrect. Retractions share with original statements the attribute that they are in some cases made insincerely, in some cases for personal gain, and in others under duress.
The term retraction carries stronger connotation than the term correction. An alteration that changes the main point of the original statement is generally referred to as a retraction while an alteration that leaves the main point of a statement intact is usually referred to simply as a correction. Depending on the circumstances, either a retraction or correction is the appropriate remedy.
article indicates that the original article should not have been published and that its data and conclusions should not be used as part of the foundation for future research
. The common reasons for the retraction of articles are scientific misconduct
and serious error.
There have been some famous examples of retracted scientific publications.
E, Paus R, Bulfone-Paus S. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-3083.2011.02519.x "The retraction has been agreed due to a finding of scientific misconduct within the laboratory where the experiments took place, and was brought to our attention by the scientific community."
Retracted: outcome and immune reconstitution of HBV-specific immunity in patients with reactivation of occult HBV infection after alemtuzumab-containing chemotherapy regimen.
Hui CK, Cheung WW, Leung KW, Cheng VC, Tang BS, Li IW, Luk JM, Lee NP, Kwong YL, Au WY, Yuen KY, Lau GK, Liang R.Department of Microbiology, University of Hong Kong, Queen Mary Hospital, Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region, China.
Retractions always negate the author's previous public support for the original statement. Like original statements, retractions are in some cases incorrect. Retractions share with original statements the attribute that they are in some cases made insincerely, in some cases for personal gain, and in others under duress.
The term retraction carries stronger connotation than the term correction. An alteration that changes the main point of the original statement is generally referred to as a retraction while an alteration that leaves the main point of a statement intact is usually referred to simply as a correction. Depending on the circumstances, either a retraction or correction is the appropriate remedy.
Retraction in science
In science, a retraction of a published scientificScience
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
article indicates that the original article should not have been published and that its data and conclusions should not be used as part of the foundation for future research
Research
Research can be defined as the scientific search for knowledge, or as any systematic investigation, to establish novel facts, solve new or existing problems, prove new ideas, or develop new theories, usually using a scientific method...
. The common reasons for the retraction of articles are scientific misconduct
Scientific misconduct
Scientific misconduct is the violation of the standard codes of scholarly conduct and ethical behavior in professional scientific research. A Lancet review on Handling of Scientific Misconduct in Scandinavian countries provides the following sample definitions: *Danish definition: "Intention or...
and serious error.
There have been some famous examples of retracted scientific publications.
Retraction for error
- 2006 Makarova, T. L. et al. Nature 413, 716-718 (2001). Set of inconsistences triggered fraud investigation against first author, but after long investigation all mistakes were admitted by appointed experts as undeliberate and result of negligence or inaccuracy. The paper was retracted by other 7 co-authors. See also Corrigendum published few months prior to retraction where first author admitted personal responsibility for some mistakes. http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2007/September/25090701.asp
- 2005 V. Schramke et al. "Retraction: RNA-interference-directed chromatin modification coupled to RNA polymerase II transcription" in Nature (volume 437, page 1057). Irreproducible results.
- 2005 R. C. Allshire. "Retraction. Hairpin RNAs and retrotransposon LTRs effect RNAi and chromatin-based gene silencing" in Science (volume 310, page 49). Irreproducible results.
- 2003 A. Kugler et al. "Retraction: Regression of human metastatic renal cell carcinoma after vaccination with tumor cell-dendritic cell hybrids" in Nature Medicine (volume 9, page 1221) was a retraction of a year 2000 article by Kugler et al. (Nat. Med. volume 6, pages 332-6). The data concerned patients with metastatic kidneyKidneyThe kidneys, organs with several functions, serve essential regulatory roles in most animals, including vertebrates and some invertebrates. They are essential in the urinary system and also serve homeostatic functions such as the regulation of electrolytes, maintenance of acid–base balance, and...
cancerCancerCancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
who were treated experimentally by combining their tumour cells with immune systemImmune systemAn immune system is a system of biological structures and processes within an organism that protects against disease by identifying and killing pathogens and tumor cells. It detects a wide variety of agents, from viruses to parasitic worms, and needs to distinguish them from the organism's own...
cells. The article was retracted because of negligence in record keeping and sloppiness in the preparation of the manuscript. - 2003 G. Hawthorne et al. "Retraction of paper on maternal diabetes" in the British Medical Journal (volume 327, page 929) was a retraction of a year 2000 article by Hawthorne et al. "Outcome of pregnancy in diabetic women in northeast England and in Norway" (BMJ volume 321, pages 730-1). The authors made a mistaken assumption about the diabetes data from NorwayNorwayNorway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
. A correct analysis of the data showed no difference between outcomes in the two countries. - 2003 Retracted ScienceScience (journal)Science is the academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is one of the world's top scientific journals....
article on ecstasy. See Retracted article on neurotoxicity of ecstasyRetracted article on neurotoxicity of ecstasy"Severe dopaminergic neurotoxicity in primates after a common recreational dose regimen of MDMA' ", was a paper by Dr. George Ricaurte which was published in the leading journal Science, and later retracted....
. - Frank Cameron JacksonFrank Cameron JacksonFrank Cameron Jackson is an Australian philosopher, currently Distinguished Professor and former Director of the Research School of Social Sciences at Australian National University. In 2007-2008, he also became a regular visiting professor of philosophy at Princeton University...
, creator of the theory of epiphenomenalismEpiphenomenalismIn philosophy of mind, epiphenomenalism, also known as Type-E Dualism, is a view that "mental" states do not have any influence on "physical" states.-Background:...
, retracted his position due to an error in reasoning.http://www.apa.udel.edu/apa/publications/proceedings/v76n3/public/abstracts.asp
Retraction for fraud or misconduct
- 2011 Retraction: Enhanced Inhibition of Tumour Growth and Metastasis, and Induction of Antitumour Immunity by IL-2-IgG2b Fusion Protein. Scandinavian Journal of Immunology, 73: 266. by Budagian V, Nanni P, Lollini PL, Musiani P, Di Carlo E, Bulanova
E, Paus R, Bulfone-Paus S. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-3083.2011.02519.x "The retraction has been agreed due to a finding of scientific misconduct within the laboratory where the experiments took place, and was brought to our attention by the scientific community."
- 2011 Retraction: Molecular and Cellular Biology, March 2011, p. 1330, Vol. 31, No. 6. doi:10.1128/MCB.05019-11 retraction for Volume 25, no. 21, p. 9324–9339, 2005. Soluble Axl Is Generated by ADAM10-Dependent Cleavage and Associates with Gas6 in Mouse Serum by Vadim Budagian, Elena Bulanova, Zane Orinska, Erwin Duitman, Katja Brandt, Andreas Ludwig, Dieter Hartmann, Greg Lemke, Paul Saftig, and Silvia Bulfone-Paus. "The publisher hereby retracts this article due to evidence of data manipulation in Fig. 2C, 4B, and 9, a clear violation of ASM’s ethical standards."
- 2009 Numerous papers written by Scott ReubenScott ReubenScott S. Reuben was Professor of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine at Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts and chief of acute pain at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Massachusetts before being sentenced to prison for health care fraud...
from 1996 to 2009 were retracted after it was discovered he never actually conducted any of the trials he claimed to have run. - 2008'Hepatology. 2008 Aug;48(2):1-10.
Retracted: outcome and immune reconstitution of HBV-specific immunity in patients with reactivation of occult HBV infection after alemtuzumab-containing chemotherapy regimen.
Hui CK, Cheung WW, Leung KW, Cheng VC, Tang BS, Li IW, Luk JM, Lee NP, Kwong YL, Au WY, Yuen KY, Lau GK, Liang R.Department of Microbiology, University of Hong Kong, Queen Mary Hospital, Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region, China.
- 2007 Retraction of several articles written by social psychologist Jennifer LernerJennifer LernerJennifer Lerner is an experimental social psychologist known for her research in emotion, effects on judgment and decision making. She is currently a professor of Public Policy and Management at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government as well as the Faculty Director of the Harvard Decision Science...
and colleagues from journals including Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin and Biological Psychiatry. A graduate student had fabricated data. - 2007 Retraction of "Cdx2 gene expression and trophectoderm lineage specification in mouse embryos" by K. Deb, M. Sivaguru, H.Y. Yong and R. Michael Roberts in ScienceScience (journal)Science is the academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is one of the world's top scientific journals....
due to first author's falsifying and fabricating digital images and thus engaging intentionally in research misconduct. - 2006 Retraction of Patient-specific embryonic stem cells derived from human SCNT blastocysts. written by Hwang Woo-SukHwang Woo-SukHwang Woo-suk is a South Korean veterinarian and researcher. He was a professor of theriogenology and biotechnology at Seoul National University who became infamous for fabricating a series of experiments, which appeared in high-profile journals, in the field of stem cell research...
. Fabrications in the field of stem cell research led to 'indictment on embezzlement and bioethics law violations linked to faked stem cell research'. - 2005 Retraction of "Enhanced insulin sensitivity, energy expenditure and thermogenesis in adipose-specific Pten suppression in mice" written by I. Shimomura. The transgenic mouse in question never existed and all gel pictures were found to be forged by one of Shimomura's colleagues.
- 2004 G. Struhl retracted the 2002 article "Evidence that Armadillo Transduces Wingless by Mediating Nuclear Export or Cytosolic Activation of Pangolin" because of fabrication of data by first author S. Chan.
- 2003 Numerous articles with questionable data from physicist Jan Hendrik SchönJan Hendrik SchönThe Schön scandal concerns German physicist Jan Hendrik Schön who briefly rose to prominence after a series of apparent breakthroughs with semiconductors that were later discovered to be fraudulent...
from many journals including both ScienceScience (journal)Science is the academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is one of the world's top scientific journals....
and NatureNature (journal)Nature, first published on 4 November 1869, is ranked the world's most cited interdisciplinary scientific journal by the Science Edition of the 2010 Journal Citation Reports...
are retracted. - 2002 Retraction of announced discovery of elements 116 and 118. See UnunhexiumUnunhexiumUnunhexium is the temporary name of a synthetic superheavy element with the temporary symbol Uuh and atomic number 116. There is no proposed name yet although moscovium has been discussed in the media.It is placed as the heaviest member of group 16 although a sufficiently stable isotope is...
. - 2000 Retraction of "Stable RNA/DNA hybrids in the mammalian genome: inducible intermediates in immunoglobulin class switch recombination" and "Transcription-dependent R-loop formation at mammalian class switch sequences" because of fabrication of data by first author R. B. Tracy.
- 1991 Thereza Imanishi-Kari, who worked with David BaltimoreDavid BaltimoreDavid Baltimore is an American biologist, university administrator, and Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine. He served as president of the California Institute of Technology from 1997 to 2006, and is currently the Robert A. Millikan Professor of Biology at Caltech...
, published a 1986 article in the journal Cell. Margot O'Toole, a postdoctoral researcher for Imanishi-Kari publicized Imanishi-Kari's scientific misconduct. After a major investigation, Baltimore was finally forced to issue a retraction in 1991 when the National Institutes of HealthNational Institutes of HealthThe National Institutes of Health are an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and are the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and health-related research. Its science and engineering counterpart is the National Science Foundation...
concluded that data in the 1986 Imanishi-Kari article had been falsified. In 1996, an expert panel appointed by the federal government cleared Imanishi-Kari of misconduct, finding no evidence of scientific fraud. - 1982-3 John DarseeJohn DarseeJohn Darsee was a medical researcher with an impressive list of publications in reputable scientific journals who was found to have fabricated data for his publications.-Early career:...
. Fabricated results in the Cardiac Research Laboratory of Eugene BraunwaldEugene Braunwald- Biography :Eugene Braunwald, an eminent American cardiologist, was born August 15, 1929 to Jewish parents Wilhelm Braunwald and Clara Wallach in Vienna....
at Harvard in the early 1980s. Initially thought to be brilliant by his boss. He was caught out by fellow researchers in the same laboratory. - 1981 Mark Spector, a graduate student in the laboratory of Efraim Racker fabricated and published data in support of a new molecular mechanism of cancer. After researchers in other laboratories were unable to replicate Spector's results, it was found that Spector had knowingly incorporated radioactive iodineIodineIodine is a chemical element with the symbol I and atomic number 53. The name is pronounced , , or . The name is from the , meaning violet or purple, due to the color of elemental iodine vapor....
into proteins rather than radioactive phosphate, allowing him to fabricate an imaginary regulatory cascade. In 1981 Efraim RackerEfraim RackerEfraim Racker was an Austrian biochemist who was responsible for identifying and purifying Factor 1 , the first part of the ATP synthase enzyme to be characterised. F1 is only a part of a larger ATP synthase complex known as Complex V...
retracted the paper "Warburg effect revisited: merger of biochemistry and molecular biology" from the scientific journal Science, volume 213, page 1313.
Retraction for political reasons
- 1633 Galileo GalileiGalileo GalileiGalileo Galilei , was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations and support for Copernicanism...
was coerced into retracting his finding that the Earth was not the center of the universe. - 1896 Jose RizalJosé RizalJosé Protacio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda , was a Filipino polymath, patriot and the most prominent advocate for reform in the Philippines during the Spanish colonial era. He is regarded as the foremost Filipino patriot and is listed as one of the national heroes of the Philippines by...
was said to have issued a letter of retraction regarding his novels and other published articles against the Roman Catholic Church.