Schneider Shorts 5.06.2026 – Thanks for the important work that you do

Schneider Shorts of 5 June 2026 – a cancer center in USA loses director, russia gains an Italian, Belgium lucky to have a russian, Spanish star and his lawyer celebrate victory, a British pensioner suffers a retraction, and so does a German professor, and finally, can we really trust vaccines from Wuhan?

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Science Elites

Thanks for the important work that you do

Elsa Flores is out as director of Moffit Cancer Center in Tampa, USA, and it is due to research misconduct investigation by her past employer, MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Read about her here:

This was reported by Tampa Bay Times on 30 May 2026:

“Elsa R. Flores has stepped down from her roles as division chief and associate center director of basic science at the cancer center, according to an email sent to senior staffers at Moffitt last week. It said that her decision was made for personal reasons and that she would remain a senior member of the Department of Molecular Oncology and focus on her research program.

But her demotion comes after Flores’ former employer, UT MD Anderson, a cancer center at the University of Texas, recently completed a retrospective review of a number of studies she co-authored. […]

At least five studies that Flores co-authored have been either retracted, corrected or flagged by science journals that published them with an “editorial expression of concern.”

I wrote about the Expression of Concern which Nature issued for Flores and Tyler Jacks in March 2024 Shorts, and about their only known retraction in April 2023 Shorts. Her husband and Moffit researcher Kenneth Tsai is coauthor on some of her bad papers. I contacted Moffit with a notification of suspected research misconduct against Flores in January 2023 and then again in March 2024, in both instances Moffit’s Research Integrity Officer replied to me that they would investigate.

And yet the Tampa Bay Times article by Chris O’Donnell never mentions my past reporting.. Which is strange considering that he contacted me on 22 May 2026:

“Hi Leonid. I’m digging into the work of Dr. Flores as the Moffitt Cancer Center is highly regarded in the Tampa Bay region and in Florida. Would you have time to go over some of the findings in your article about her work? The research is quite technical and a challenge for a lay reporter like me. I also have some news about Dr. Flores that may be of interest. […] Thanks for the important work that you do.“

I replied to O’Donnell, but never heard from him back. He was probably busy erasing every mention of For Better Science from his reporting. I only learned about his article from a reader’s comment.

Flores has around 18 papers on PubPeer, there are some very outrageous forgeries, like Flores et al 2005 (never even corrected because Cell Press). The attention to her name was very unfortunate to other cheaters she collaborated with, like her former Houston neighbour Cristian Coarfa (see July 2025 Shorts). Here, Min Gyu Lee at MD Anderson got caught:

Shilpa S. Dhar , Dongyu Zhao , Tao Lin , Bingnan Gu , Khusboo Pal , Sarah J. Wu , Hunain Alam , Jie Lv , Kyuson Yun , Vidya Gopalakrishnan, Elsa R. Flores , Paul A. Northcott, Veena Rajaram , Wei Li , Ali Shilatifard, Roy V. Sillitoe, Kaifu Chen , Min Gyu Lee MLL4 Is Required to Maintain Broad H3K4me3 Peaks and Super-Enhancers at Tumor Suppressor Genes Molecular Cell (2018) doi: 10.1016/j.molcel.2018.04.028 

Flores also collaborated on dodgy science with Gerry Melino, Editor-in-Chief of Cell Death and Depravity journals (see February 2025 Shorts). Therefore, don’t expect any action here (the last author Roger Leng is associate professor at University of Alberta in Canada):

Benfan Wang , H. Helena Wu , Yasser Abuetabh , Sarah Leng , Sandra T. Davidge , Elsa R. Flores , David D. Eisenstat , Roger Leng p63, a key regulator of Ago2, links to the microRNA-144 cluster Cell Death and Disease (2022) doi: 10.1038/s41419-022-04854-1 

Or how about this collaboration with Xinbin Chen of University of California Davis:

Yuqian Jiang , Enshun Xu , Jin Zhang, Mingyi Chen , Elsa Flores , Xinbin Chen The Rbm38-p63 feedback loop is critical for tumor suppression and longevity Oncogene (2018) doi: 10.1038/s41388-018-0176-5 

Tampa Bay Post also informs us that John Cleveland, “a Moffitt executive vice president, will take over Flores’s position as associate center director“. A good choice, I agree, here are Cleveland’s qualifications:

Kirsteen H. Maclean , Ulrich B. Keller , Carlos Rodriguez-Galindo , Jonas A. Nilsson , John L. Cleveland c-Myc Augments Gamma Irradiation-Induced Apoptosis by Suppressing Bcl-X L Molecular and Cellular Biology (2003) doi: 10.1128/mcb.23.20.7256-7270.2003 

But that was from Cleveland’s past life in at University of Tennessee in Memphis, so maybe it doesn’t count? This is from his prior life at Scripps Research Institute in Florida:

Jennifer S. Carew , Steffan T. Nawrocki , Venudhar K. Reddy , Dorothy Bush , Jerold E. Rehg , Andrew Goodwin , Janet A. Houghton , Robert A. Casero , Laurence J. Marton , John L. Cleveland The novel polyamine analogue CGC-11093 enhances the antimyeloma activity of bortezomib Cancer Research (2008) doi: 10.1158/0008-5472.can-07-6483 

Also from Scripps, again with Bob Casero Jr (professor at Johns Hopkins University), and with University of New Mexico professor Manoocher Soleimani (who has more on PubPeer):

Kamyar Zahedi, Sharon Barone , Christina Destefano-Shields , Marybeth Brooks , Tracy Murray-Stewart , Matthew Dunworth , Weimin Li , Joanne R. Doherty , Mark A. Hall , Roger D. Smith , John L. Cleveland , Robert A. Casero , Manoocher Soleimani Activation of endoplasmic reticulum stress response by enhanced polyamine catabolism is important in the mediation of cisplatin-induced acute kidney injury PLOS One (2017)
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0184570 

A Memphis paper by Cleveland and his colleagues (Bois et al 2005) was retracted in 2007 upon request of the last author Gerard Grosveld. Six years later, the first author Philippe Bois, who by then followed Cleveland to Scripps as assistant professor, was found guilty of research misconduct.

Now to a paper from Moffit. Here is Cleveland with Nathanael Gray and two friends of MD Anderson’s cheater Kapil Bhalla: Jianguo Tao of University of Virginia (PubPeer record), and the Florida Man Eduardo Sotomayor, Director of Tampa General Hospital Cancer Institute:

Xiaohong Zhao , Yuan Ren , Matthew Lawlor , Bijal D. Shah , Paul M.C. Park , Tint Lwin , Xuefeng Wang , Kenian Liu , Michelle Wang , Jing Gao , Tao Li , Mousheng Xu , Ariosto S. Silva , Kaplan Lee , Tinghu Zhang , John M. Koomen , Huijuan Jiang , Praneeth R. Sudalagunta , Mark B. Meads , Fengdong Cheng , Chengfeng Bi, Kai Fu, Huitao Fan, William S. Dalton, Lynn C. Moscinski, Kenneth H. Shain, Eduardo M. Sotomayor, Gang Greg Wang, Nathanael S. Gray, John L. Cleveland, Jun Qi, Jianguo Tao BCL2 Amplicon Loss and Transcriptional Remodeling Drives ABT-199 Resistance in B Cell Lymphoma Models Cancer Cell (2019) doi: 10.1016/j.ccell.2019.04.005 

More for Cleveland is on PubPeer.

But that’s why the journalist decided not to mention For Better Science, because we don’t focus on individual rotten apples here, but on entire rotten baskets.

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Unbelievable Adventures of Italian in Russia

Meet Vittorio Calabrese, an Italian in russia!

Two years ago, he was got tired of just watching the daily news of russia murdering, raping and abducting Ukrainian children, and decided to do something. In September 2024, he travelled to Moscow to participate in the conference “Trends in Longevity Medicine“, where he was duly sat next to a blonde woman:

Thus invigorated, Calabrese, who is in his day job professor of medicine at University of Catania in Sicily, joined in July 2025 the Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University as professor. The stay of the Italian guest was sponsored by a Megagrant from putin himself:

We do not know what Calabrese gets in russia next to money, but we can assume that like all russia lovers, he won’t get this anywhere else.

Calabrese’s scientific qualification are recorded on PubPeer. Because this Catania professor also directs the graduate schools for Clinical Pathology and Clinical Biochemistry at two other Sicilian universities (University of Messina and University of Palermo), he collaborated with the sacked Messina rector and the mass-retracted cheater Salvatore Cuzzocrea.

Carolin Cornelius , Angela Trovato Salinaro , Maria Scuto , Vincenzo Fronte , Maria Teresa Cambria , Manuela Pennisi , Rita Bella , Pietro Milone , Antonio Graziano , Rosalia Crupi , Salvatore Cuzzocrea, Giovanni Pennisi , Vittorio Calabrese Cellular stress response, sirtuins and UCP proteins in Alzheimer disease: role of vitagenes Immunity & Ageing (2013) doi: 10.1186/1742-4933-10-41 

Here a more recent paper by these two men:

Rosalba Siracusa , Maria Scuto, Roberta Fusco, Angela Trovato, Maria Laura Ontario, Roberto Crea, Rosanna Di Paola, Salvatore Cuzzocrea, Vittorio Calabrese Anti-inflammatory and Anti-oxidant Activity of Hidrox® in Rotenone-Induced Parkinson’s Disease in Mice Antioxidants (2020) doi: 10.3390/antiox9090824 

The patent for the olive pulp anti-aging supplement used here, Hidrox®, belongs to the coauthor Roberto Crea, who is president of the now-defunct Californian company Oliphenol LLC, which used to sell this product. In that omentioned paper Siracusa et al 2020, the three boys successfully cured Parkinson’s with Hidrox. Soon after, Oliphenol went bust and Parkinson’s and old age will remain uncured.

This one, about Hidrox against endometriosis, was corrected:

Marika Cordaro , Angela Trovato Salinaro , Rosalba Siracusa , Ramona D’Amico , Daniela Impellizzeri , Maria Scuto , Maria Laura Ontario , Livia Interdonato , Roberto Crea, Roberta Fusco, Salvatore Cuzzocrea, Rosanna Di Paola , Vittorio Calabrese Hidrox® and Endometriosis: Biochemical Evaluation of Oxidative Stress and Pain Antioxidants (2021) doi: 10.3390/antiox10050720 

The August 2025 Correction replaced the overlapping image and declared that “the scientific conclusions are unaffected“. Another Hidrox fabrication, corrected in September 2025 with almost the same note:

Ramona D’Amico, Angela Trovato Salinaro, Marika Cordaro, Roberta Fusco, Daniela Impellizzeri, Livia Interdonato, Maria Scuto, Maria Laura Ontario, Roberto Crea, Rosalba Siracusa, Salvatore Cuzzocrea, Rosanna Di Paola, Vittorio Calabrese Hidrox and Chronic Cystitis: Biochemical Evaluation of Inflammation, Oxidative Stress, and Pain Antioxidants (2021) doi: 10.3390/antiox10071046   

Do you think greedy sods like Cuzzocrea and Calabrese worked for Crea’s company for free? They certainly claimed to have no conflicts of interests whatsoever in their Hidrox papers.

But Calabrese is perfectly able to produce trash science even without his friend Cuzzocrea:

Ines Amara , Amal Salah , Rim Timoumi , Emna Annabi , Maria Scuto , Angela Trovato , Fadwa Neffati , Vittorio Calabrese, Salwa Abid-Essefi Effect of di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate on Nrf2-regulated glutathione homeostasis in mouse kidney Cell Stress and Chaperones (2020) doi: 10.1007/s12192-020-01127-8 

Calabrese also collaborated with his American namesake Edward Calabrese, on the topic of hormesis (e.g., Calabrese et al 2013). Which basically means that if you eat rat poison or polonium in small quantities, it will give you superpowers. Read about that other Calabrese in April 2026 Shorts and below:

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Why you are going to the lab

Now meet a russian scientist not in Italy, but in Belgium. Anna Sablina finished university in Moscow in 2002 and then went abroad: first as PhD student and postdoc to USA, and in 2009 as associate professor to KU Leuven and group leader in the affiliated VIB Center for the Biology of Disease. Her recruitment from USA was funded by the prestigious EMBO Young Investigator grant, Sablina is now full professor.

Here a recent paper from her lab, which among other things proves that Springer Nature is lying about their huge team of experts with massive AI tools screening manuscripts pre-publication:

Tonci Ivanisevic , Yan Ma , Emiel Van Boxel , Wout Magits , Benoit Lechat , Zeynep Koçberber , Phillipp Willnow , Sarah-Maria Fendt , Greetje Vande Velde , Raj Sewduth, Anna A Sablina Intrinsic resistance to RAS inhibitors is driven by dysregulation of KRAS degradation Nature Communications (2025) doi: 10.1038/s41467-025-67109-5 

Some apparently copy-pasted gel bands here, although Sablina disagreed:

Peter Kalev , Michal Simicek , Iria Vazquez , Sebastian Munck , Liping Chen , Thomas Soin , Natasha Danda , Wen Chen , Anna Sablina Loss of PPP2R2A inhibits homologous recombination DNA repair and predicts tumor sensitivity to PARP inhibition Cancer Research (2012) doi: 10.1158/0008-5472.can-12-1667 

The KU Leuven professor replied on PubPeer in December 2023 with a stretched version of the ATM gel and commented: “Unfortunately, I don’t have the original blots as we are obliged to keep them only for 10 years. […] The lines are clearly different.” Actually, no, even there one sees similarities, and even likely traces of gel splicing.

Sablina learned her skill in USA at Dana Farber Cancer Institute under the infamous cheater William Hahn, whose fake science caused the institute to repay $15 million, part of which went to the sleuth Sholto David (read December 2025 Shorts).

Here is the russian genius Sablina achieving in Hahn’s elite lab:

Anna A. Sablina, Wen Chen , Jason D. Arroyo , Laura Corral , Melissa Hector , Sara E. Bulmer , James A. DeCaprio, William C. Hahn The tumor suppressor PP2A Abeta regulates the RalA GTPase Cell (2007) doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2007.03.047 

This already had Sablina’s Belgian affiliation:

Anna A. Sablina, Melissa Hector , Nathalie Colpaert , William C. Hahn Identification of PP2A complexes and pathways involved in cell transformation Cancer Research (2010) doi: 10.1158/0008-5472.can-10-2855 

There are also these collaborations with Sablina’s KU Leuven colleagues:

In May 2025, EMBO celebrated Sablina with an article, where the the KU Leuven professor said:

“I think it is tremendously important for us researchers to hear from patients what kind of challenges they face in their daily lives. It is grounding. It reminds you of why you are going to the lab and why you cannot abandon your work when difficulties arise.”

So here is Sablina’s present for EMBO:

Maria Francesca Baietti , Michal Simicek , Layka Abbasi Asbagh , Enrico Radaelli , Sam Lievens , Jonathan Crowther , Mikhail Steklov , Vasily N Aushev , David Martínez García , Jan Tavernier , Anna A Sablina OTUB1 triggers lung cancer development by inhibiting RAS monoubiquitination EMBO Molecular Medicine (2016) doi: 10.15252/emmm.201505972 

Maybe Sablina can show her PubPeer record to some patients, and explain to them how this contributes towards curing cancer?

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Scholarly Publishing

Dismantled campaign of falsehoods and slanders against Dr. Barbacid

The farce around the Spanish cancer superstar Mariano Barbacid and his miraculous cancer cure in PNAS enters the third act. The previous two acts featured in February 2026 Shorts and in May 2026 Shorts. Please also read the reporting by El Pais, especially this.

In Act One, Barbacid, who is the founding director of the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Oncológicas (CNIO) in Madrid, published in December 2025 a paper in PNAS about a “a triple therapy, which combined an experimental KRAS inhibitor (daraxonrasib) with an approved drug for certain lung adenocarcinomas (afatinib) and a protein degrader (SD36)“, and how it cures pancreatic cancer. After that announcement, the Spanish private foundation CRIS Contra el Cáncer raised almost €3.7 million from 80,000 donors to support Barbacid’s research. Countless cancer patients phoned up and wrote desperate messages, many even travelled to CNIO in Madrid, hoping to be cured by Barbacid.

The paper was contributed to PNAS by Barbacid in his capacity as academy member, outside of proper peer review. It was instead “reviewed” by friends Barbacid himself invited: Anton Berns, Ignacio Garrido-Laguna, and David Tuveson.

But then, right after the paper was published, Sholto David found image duplications:

Vasiliki Liaki , Sara Barrambana , Myrto Kostopoulou , Carmen G. Lechuga , Elena Zamorano-Dominguez , Domingo Acosta , Lucia Morales-Cacho , Ruth Álvarez , Pian Sun , Blanca Rosas-Perez , Rebeca Barrero , Silvia Jiménez-Parrado , Alejandra López-García , Marta San Roman , Juan Carlos López-Gil , Matthias Drosten , Bruno Sainz , Monica Musteanu , Eduardo Caleiras , Nelson Dusetti , Valeria Poli, Francisco Sánchez-Bueno, Carmen Guerra, Mariano Barbacid A targeted combination therapy achieves effective pancreatic cancer regression and prevents tumor resistance Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2025) doi: 10.1073/pnas.2523039122 

In Act Two the paper was retracted, because Barbacid lied about his Conflicts of Interests. He revealed only some “patent applications”, while in reality he and his coauthors Carmen Guerra and Vasiliki Liaki owned a company called Vega Oncotargets, which was set up already in 2014, and for which this charity money was specifically collected. Barbacid also celebrated his business and its proprietary cancer cure on Spanish television.

The Retraction from 27 April 2026 mentioned:

“The editors are retracting this article due to an . NAS Member Contributing author, Mariano Barbacid, and two coauthors, Vasiliki Liaki and Carmen Guerra, hold financial interests in Vega Oncotargets.”

Can you imagine what Act Three is about?

On 1 June 2026, Barbacid re-published this paper as if nothing happened! The problematic figures were replaced without a word, and there is a new Conflicts of Interests statement:

Vasiliki Liaki , Sara Barrambana , Myrto Kostopoulou , Carmen G. Lechuga , Elena Zamorano-Dominguez , Domingo Acosta-Gallego , Lucía Morales-Cacho , Ruth Álvarez , Pian Sun , Blanca Rosas-Perez , Rebeca Barrero , Silvia Jiménez-Parrado , Alejandra López-García , Marta San Roman , Juan Carlos López-Gil , Matthias Drosten , Bruno Sainz , Monica Musteanu , Eduardo Caleiras , Nelson Dusetti , Valeria Poli, Francisco Sánchez-Bueno, Carmen Guerra, Mariano Barbacid A targeted combination therapy achieves effective pancreatic cancer regression and prevents tumor resistance Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2026) doi: 10.1073/pnas.2610708123 

Driven by his massive male ego and the massive charity money raised for his company, Barbacid dispatched lawyers to campaign and presumably to threaten to sue PNAS unless they re-install his paper. Which the journal now did. In a massive hurry, it is obvious that absolutely nobody looked at the manuscript this time. Sholto visualised it here:

We don’t know what happened to the gels and why, but yes, Barbacid, lawyered-up. He publicly went on attack right after the retraction:

On 2 June 2026, Barbacid’s lawyer Lupe Sanchez shared this on X (found via Democrata.es):

Another Spanish news-site now writes that the “As a solution to correct “the formal omission committed”, the journal offered to resubmit the article as a direct submission“. PNAS reveals that the new version was editorially handled by Owen Witte of University of California, submitted on 7 April 2026 (3 weeks BEFORE the retraction of the original “contributed” version), and accepted on 1 May 2026 (right after the retraction). Again: Barbacid submitted a manuscript for publication which was identical (safe for some duplicationed figures) to his own paper already published, and the new copy still went into peer review and passed it rapidly. This technically contradicts PNAS‘s own “prohibition against double publishing“.

Anyway, one could say, Barbacid and his lawyer has cured cancer, again.

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Retraction Watchdogging

Not intentionally duplicated or altered

A retractions struck an unsuspecting German cancer researcher, Brigitte Pützer, who is professor at University of Rostock:

Z. Li , B. M. Pützer Spliceosomal protein E regulates neoplastic cell growth by modulating expression of cyclin E/CDK2 and G2/M checkpoint proteins Journal of Cellular and Molecular Medicine (2008) doi: 10.1111/j.1582-4934.2008.00244.x 

The Retraction arrived on 1 June 2026:

“A third party reported that comments had been made on PubPeer [1] that raised concerns about potential duplication of bands in Figure 2B. Additional investigation by the publisher found evidence of splicing in Figure 1B and duplication of Actin blots between Ad-GFP in Figure 3A and Ad-Sme pre-mRNA splicing in Figure 5A. The investigation also found evidence of duplications of the Ad SmE Actin blot in Figure 3A and the Ad-GFP p-CDC2 (Tyr15)/CDC2 blot in Figure 5A. Additional potential duplicated bands were detected in Figure 5A.

The authors responded to an inquiry by the publisher and stated that the Western blots were generated separately for each experiment and were not intentionally duplicated or altered. However, the original data were no longer available due to the time that had elapsed since publication.

The retraction has been agreed to because the evidence of highly similar or duplicated bands fundamentally compromises the editors’ confidence in the results presented. The authors disagree with the retraction.”

The reference [1] goes to the anonymous PubPeer comments by Claire Francis from May 2016 and October 2025. And the sleuth found much more in Pützer’s papers and posted it all on PubPeer.

Similar problem here, with same first author. Pützer’s coauthor Helmut Hanenberg used to be my own coauthor during my PhD studies in Düsseldorf at around this same time…

Z Li , J Stanelle , C Leurs , H Hanenberg , B M Pützer Selection of novel mediators of E2F1-induced apoptosis through retroviral expression of an antisense cDNA library Nucleic Acids Research (2005) doi: 10.1093/nar/gki581 

Here again a reader supplied me with additional findings which I shared on PubPeer:

Tomáš Racek, Sven Buhlmann , Franziska Rüst, Susanne Knoll, Vijay Alla , Brigitte M. Pützer Transcriptional repression of the prosurvival endoplasmic reticulum chaperone GRP78/BIP by E2F1 Journal of Biological Chemistry (2008) doi: 10.1074/jbc.m803925200 

How about a duplicated FACS plot my reader found?

Jens Stanelle , Thorsten Stiewe , Florian Rödicker , Karin Köhler , Carmen Theseling , Brigitte M Pützer Mechanism of E2F1-induced apoptosis in primary vascular smooth muscle cells Cardiovascular Research (2003) doi: 10.1016/s0008-6363(03)00392-4 

And here again bad western blots by Claire Francis:

Here some duplicated RT-PCR gels:

Claudia Meier , Philip Hardtstock , Sophie Joost , Vijay Alla , Brigitte M. Pützer p73 and IGF1R Regulate Emergence of Aggressive Cancer Stem–like Features via miR-885-5p Control Cancer Research (2016) doi: 10.1158/0008-5472.can-15-1228 

In the next paper, we have a celebrity coauthor here, Andrea Tannapfel, Dean of Medicine at the University of Bochum, who was duly declared completely innocent by her university (read March 2026 Shorts).

So, here it is, analysis by a reader:

N Miše , M Drosten , T Racek , A Tannapfel , B M Pützer Evaluation of potential mechanisms underlying genotype–phenotype correlations in multiple endocrine neoplasia type 2 Oncogene (2006) doi: 10.1038/sj.onc.1209669 

In 2012, Pützer published a mysterious correction for this paper:

K John , V Alla , C Meier , B M Pützer GRAMD4 mimics p53 and mediates the apoptotic function of p73 at mitochondria Cell Death and Differentiation (2011) doi: 10.1038/cdd.2010.153 

Difficult to understand what happened, but I see that four gels were replaced. Turned out that was because they appeared in other figures for other experiments, as Aneurus Inconstans found out for me:

But the authors forgot to replace one more gel:

Soon after this outrageously dishonest correction, Pützer was promoted, and installed in 2013 as Director of the Institute of Experimental Gene Therapy and Cancer Research at her University of Rostock.

Pützer chose not to reply to my email.

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Happy first retraction, mark griffiths!

Mark Griffiths, the papermilling professor of Nottingham Trent University (NTU) in UK, suffered his first retraction. Read about Griffiths’s dirty tricks and how his university threatened not just to sue, but also to bite the head off everyone who criticises him:

The Distinguished Professor and leather jacket wearer Griffith retired in August 2025, right on his 60th birthday. Which is quite early, one wonders what happened, maybe he got into a fight? For some reason, NTU soon began writing his name in small letters, as “mark griffiths”:

Here is the retracted paper, it wasn’t flagged on PubPeer before:

Bahram Armoon , Marie-Josée Fleury , Amir-Hossien Bayat , Azadeh Bayani , Rasool Mohammadi , Mark D. Griffiths Quality of life and its correlated factors among patients with substance use disorders: a systematic review and meta-analysis Archives of public health (2022) doi: 10.1186/s13690-022-00940-0 

“The Editors-in-Chief have retracted this article. After publication the Editors-in-Chief were made aware that this article contains material that substantially overlaps with [1]. Independent post-publication peer review has confirmed, among others, the following issues:

• the result of the publication bias test is identical with the corresponding test in [1], despite there being no overlap in the final set of articles included in this meta-analysis and in [1];
• in the PRISMA flowchart, the number of articles identified (including from each database), the number of duplicates removed and the number of papers screened are identical with the number of articles in the corresponding stages in the PRISMA flowchart of [1];
• overlap of text with [1], particularly in the Abstract, Background and Methods sections.

The Editors-in-Chief therefore no longer have confidence in the validity of the data and the conclusions drawn.

Bahram Armoon, Marie-Josée Fleury, Azadeh Bayani, and Mark D. Griffiths disagree with this retraction. “

(Retraction 29 May 2026)

This was the earlier paper, where Griffiths and Fleury replaced its two last authors:

Bahram Armoon , Amir-Hossien Bayat , Azadeh Bayani , Rasool Mohammadi , Elaheh Ahounbar , Yadollah Fakhri Quality of life and its associated factors among patients with substance use disorders: A systematic review and meta-analysis Journal of Substance Use (2023) doi: 10.1080/14659891.2022.2069612 

Previously Griffiths avoided the retraction of his paper Mamun & Griffiths 2020, which was restored after a temporary removal. Will there be more retractions now that Griffiths retired?

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Science Breakthroughs

Wuhan vaccines

Some of you may recall a certain Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in China, where until late 2019 people used to generate gain-of-function SARS viruses, which totally never caused the leak of SARS-CoV2 virus and the deadly COVID-19 pandemic.

Well, scientists at the same WIV are now working on vaccines to prevent the next pandemic! Especially Ebola! This study is lead by WIV researchers Huajun Zhang and Peng Gong, plus Sandra Chiu of University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei. Mu Yang found issues in Figure 1D:

Junhui Zhou, Xinghai Zhang, Yanfeng Yao , Ying Xie , Fangxu Li , Weiqi Wang , Feihu Yan , Cheng Peng , Baoyue Zhang , Yan Wu , Zengguo Cao , Yun Peng , Ge Gao , Huajun Zhang, Peng Gong, Sandra Chiu Recombinant live attenuated measles virus-based vaccines inducing comprehensive protection against Ebola and Marburg viruses Molecular therapy (2025) doi: 10.1016/j.ymthe.2025.08.022 

Chiu replied right away with raw data, to prove that Fig 1D, which served as “a qualitative image to show successful construction and expression of the targeting antigen from each candidate vaccine“, does “contain weak blotting/background features rather than a completely blank region.“. But Maarten van Kampen then proved that this alleged raw data doesn’t match the published figure, and he found other issues:

And here are Chiu and Zhang working on SARS-CoV2:

Shiling Hu , Nan Wang , Shaohong Chen , Huajun Zhang , Cheng Wang , Weina Ma , Xinghai Zhang , Yan Wu , Yanni Lv , Zhuoyin Xue , Haoyun Bai , Shuai Ge , Huaizhen He , Wen Lu , Tao Zhang , Yuanyuan Ding , Rui Liu , Shengli Han , Yingzhuan Zhan , Guanqun Zhan , Zengjun Guo, Yongjing Zhang, Jiayu Lu, Jiapan Gao, Qianqian Jia, Yuejin Wang, Hongliang Wang, Shemin Lu, Tengchuan Jin, Sandra Chiu, Langchong He Harringtonine: A more effective antagonist for Omicron variant Biochemical Pharmacology (2023) doi: 10.1016/j.bcp.2023.115617 

Zhang studying COVID-19 again, with none other but the famous Batwoman Shi Zhengli, who proved that SARS-CoV2 came from all possible wild animals and never ever from her own WIV:

Qiang Zhang , Huajun Zhang , Kun Huang , Yong Yang , Xianfeng Hui , Jindong Gao , Xinglin He , Chengfei Li , Wenxiao Gong , Yufei Zhang , Cheng Peng , Xiaoxiao Gao , Huanchun Chen , Zhong Zou, Zhengli Shi, Meilin Jin SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing serum antibodies in cats: a serological investigation bioRxiv (2020) doi: 10.1101/2020.04.01.021196 

We all must trust those Wuhan scholars with our lives. Well, we have no other choice, do we?

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