A New Record for Retractions? (Part 2)

By Dennis Normile
ScienceInsider
Originally published on July 2, 2012

An investigating committee in Japan has concluded that a Japanese anesthesiologist, Yoshitaka Fujii, fabricated a whopping 172 papers over the past 19 years. Among other problems, the panel, set up by the Japanese Society of Anesthesiologists, could find no records of patients and no evidence medication was ever administered.

"It is as if someone sat at a desk and wrote a novel about a research idea," the committee wrote in a 29 June summary report posted in Japanese on the society's Web site.

The fabrications could produce a record number of retractions by a single author if the journals, as seems likely, decide to retract the papers. ScienceInsider was unable to reach Fujii, who had asked the society not to provide the media with his contact information.

The entire story is here.