1.RE: T. Taira et al. ‘Increased serum high mobility group box-1 level in Churg-Strauss syndrome' Clin Exp Immunol 2007; 148:241–7.
Retraction: The following article from Clinical & Experimental Immunology entitled ‘Increased serum high mobility group box-1 level in Churg-Strauss Syndrome’ by Tetsuhiko Taira, Wataru Matsuyama, Hideo Mitsuyama, Ko-ichi Kawahara, Ikkou Higashimoto, Ikurou Maruyama, Mitsuhiro Osame and Kimiyoshi Arimura, published online on 8th March 2008 in Wiley InterScience (http://www.interscience.wiley.com), has been retracted by agreement between Professor Yoshida Hiroki, President of Kagoshima University, the journal Editor in Chief, Professor Mark Peakman, and Wiley-Blackwell.
The retraction has been agreed following the findings of the Investigation Committee chaired by Professor Youichi Minakawa of Kagoshima University. The article was found to be based on fraudulent data of the late Dr. Wataru Matsuyama.
2.RE: K. Mizuno et al. ‘Clinical investigation: increased serum stromal derived factor 1 alpha levels in pulmonary tuberculosis’ Clin Exp Immunol 2005; 139:490–7.
Retraction: The following article from Clinical & Experimental Immunology entitled ‘Increased serum stromal derived factor 1 alpha level in pulmonary tuberculosis’ by Wataru Matsuyama, Keiko Mizuno, Hideo Mitsuyama, Masaki Watanabe, Ikkou Higashimoto, Mitsuhiro Osame and Kimiyoshi Arimura, published online on 7th February 2005 in Wiley InterScience (http://www.interscience.wiley.com), has been retracted by agreement between Professor Yoshida Hiroki, President of Kagoshima University, the journal Editor in Chief, Professor Mark Peakman, and Wiley-Blackwell.
The retraction has been agreed following the findings of the Investigation Committee chaired by Professor Youichi Minakawa of Kagoshima University. The article was found to be based on fraudulent data of the late Dr. Wataru Matsuyama.
Results of investigation
The investigation took more time than we had expected at first because Dr. Matsuyama had published many articles which had to be examined carefully. Unfortunately, Dr. Matsuyama committed suicide early last November. He did not provide us any data except for one article from the American Journal of Pathology. According to university legislation, we have to judge whether an article is unfaithful or has falsified data if any data is not presented by authors to justify the article. There are fifty-one articles written in English of which Dr. Matsuyama was one of the authors. Three articles were recognized to be based on the falsified data by Dr. Matsuyama himself. And one of the foregoing three articles was judged to be prepared by falsified data. Nine of the remaining 46 articles were judged to be unfaithful because we had no raw data which resolved the many questions for the reliability of articles.
The followings are the two articles by Dr. Matsuyama published in the Clinical & Experimental Immunology and the reasons for our judgment.
RE: T. Taira et al. ‘Increased serum high mobility group box-1 level in Churg-Strauss syndrome’ Clin Exp Immunol 2007; 148:241–7.
The reasons for our decision
It is not reliability that the articles published in other journals which were recognized as fabricated by Dr. W. Matsuyama himself had been quoted in this article as references cites in his experiments. The data of Figure 2A and C of this article was used in the article in which Dr. Matsuyama was involved as one of co-authors published in another journal. The first author, Dr. Taira had worked on part of this experiment. However, that data was managed by Dr. W. Matsuyama, so the first author could not provide us the raw data. Hence we have to judge this article as fraudulent.
RE: K. Mizuno et al. ‘Clinical investigation:increased serum stromal derived factor 1 alpha levels in pulmonary tuberculosis’. Clin Exp Immunol 2005; 139:490–7.
The reasons for our decision
This article was based on the case patients from 1999 to 2004 but we could not identify the 52 case patients. All the data had been managed by Dr. W. Matuyama, and no raw data was provided to us. Hence, we have to judge this article as fraudulent.
June 16, 2008
Prof. M. Peakman
Editor-in-Chief
Clinical & Experimental Immunology
The British Society for Immunology
Vintage House 37, Albert Embankment
London SE1 7TL
UK
Dear Prof. Peakman,
On behalf of Kagoshima University, I would like to apologize for the fraud activity by one of our former faculty member, Dr. Wataru Matsuyama. I firmly believe that this unfaithful conduct was against the essential spirit of the academic world and is in no way pardonable. I also appreciate your cooperation in our investigation regarding his unfaithful research conduct.
A committee was set up following detection of the fraud last fall in accordance with our university legislation on unfaithful research conduct and had investigated earnestly. The committee recently finished its investigation; hence I would like to report to you the results as the attached.
In the wake of the report of the investigation committee, I have advised all of the co-authors to retract all articles which were judged unfaithful. Following this, I am convinced that all co-authors will make procedures to retract those articles as soon as possible.
From now on, we will make every effort to strengthen the discipline in our staff and to prevent similar misdeeds from recurring.
Yours sincerely,
Hiroki Yoshida, MD, PhD
President
E-mail: fgaku-f@kuas.kagoshima-u.ac.jp