Retraction of articles written by Dr. Yoshitaka Fujii

Excerpt

On March 13^th, 2012, an Expression of Concern was posted in the Journal regarding 39 published articles written by Dr. Yoshitaka Fujii from Japan.¹ The notice explained that the Editorial Office had received an article submission entitled “Effects of colforsin daropate on hypercapnic depression of diaphragmatic contractility in pentobarbital-anesthetized dogs”. The authors of the article are Yoshitaka Fujii MD and Aki Uemura MD from the First Department of Anesthesiology, Toho University School of Medicine in Tokyo, Japan. At the time the article was submitted, the editors of the Journal were aware of ongoing concerns regarding Dr. Fujii’s work that extended over the previous two decades. Indeed, a Letter to the Editor by Kranke et al.1 published in Anesthesia & Analgesia in 2000 raised serious concerns regarding the implausibility of data in 47 articles by Dr. Fujii published in five journals, including the Canadian Journal of Anesthesia, during the years 1994-99. In 13 of the articles cited by Kranke et al., the frequency of headache was reported as being identical in all groups, whereas this side effect differed by no more than one patient per group in the remaining eight papers. Statistical testing of the null hypothesis that the reported identical incidences could have occurred by chance vs the alternative hypothesis that an underlying reason led to such identical results led Kranke et al. to their conclusion that “there must be an underlying influence causing such incredibly nice data reported by Fujii et al.”1 In retrospect, we deeply regret that the affected journals did not pursue these concerns at that time. …