Retraction of the Week – Senzaki’s Tainted Evidence

Each week, OTW publishes a recent scientific journal retraction arising from shoddy, lazy or downright fraudulent research. These are examples of researchers who omitted or falsified data, used data out of context, or employed such awful logic that they were forced to retract their study.

These examples are collected by Retraction Watch and we are honored to be able to present them with permission from Retraction Watch to our readers. Retraction Watch was started in 2010 by Adam Marcus and Ivan Oransky, M.D.

Circulation’s Retractions

Lying about obtaining ethics approval for your studies will get your papers retracted, but will it invalidate the evidence?

Retraction Watch reported on June 13 that the American Heart Association’s (AHA) journal, Circulation, has retracted four articles by Hideaki Senzaki, M.D., of Saitama Medical University after the association was contacted in April by the University and published a retraction at their request.

Hideaki is accused of misleading the publication on IRB (Independent Review Board) approval. He is a highly-published investigator who trained at Johns Hopkins for a time.

Retraction Watch tried to reach Senzaki for comment but did not hear back from him. They also left word with the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, which has published papers by Senzaki, to find out whether it, too had been contacted by Saitama officials. There was no response yet from the publication.

According to the Circulation notice:

The four articles listed below have been retracted due to ethical violations. The corresponding author’s institution, Saitama Medical University, reported to the editors of Circulation, that Dr. Hideaki Senzaki did not receive approval for these studies from the institutional internal ethics committee. Furthermore, in each of the articles referenced below, it was determined that Dr. Senzaki misinformed the editors and readers of Circulation by stating that the studies had received the necessary approval from his institutional review board.

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  Ventricular–Vascular Stiffening in Patients With Repaired Coarctation of Aorta: Integrated Pathophysiology of Hypertension. Circulation. 2008; 118:S191–S198, doi:10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.107.757096

  
  
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  Arterial Hemodynamics in Patients After Kawasaki Disease. Circulation. 2005;111:2119–2125, doi:10.1161/01.CIR.0000162483.51132.25

  
  
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  Ventricular Afterload and Ventricular Work in Fontan Circulation: Comparison With Normal Two-Ventricle Circulation and Single-Ventricle Circulation With Blalock-Taussig Shunts. Circulation. 2002; 105: 2885–2892, doi: 10.1161/01. CIR. 0000018621. 96210.72

  
  
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  Circulating Matrix Metalloproteinases and Their Inhibitors in Patients With Kawasaki Disease. Circulation. 2001;104:860–863, doi:10.1161/hc3301.095286

  
  

Circulation, established in 1950, is published weekly by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins for the AHA and is circulated to over 23, 000 cardiologists, cardiovascular surgeons, and others practicing cardiovascular medicine.

According to Microsoft Academic Search, Senzaki has been credited with 62 publications and 527 citations. The four papers listed above have been cited ranging from 9 to 67 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

Tainted Evidence

Retraction Watch‘s Ivan Oransky, M.D., writes, “Certainly, violation of research ethics is a profound problem that journals must take seriously. But some observers raised a provocative and interesting point: What if a study lacks IRB approval but produces impressive (and reproducible) results? Is retraction really the only option? Should other researchers be denied the chance to learn from the tainted finding?”

One has to ask, what’s in the best interest of patients and researchers? If a physician finds something in the tainted literature which may help her patient, is she obligated to share it with her patients? Tell us what you think.