A Retracted Stem Cell Study Reveals Science’s Shortcomings

In June a notice posted on the website of the journal Nature set a new scientific record. It withdrew what is now the most highly cited research paper ever to be retracted.

The study, published in 2002 by Catherine Verfaillie, then at the University of Minnesota, and her colleagues, had been cited 4,482 times by its demise according to the Web of Science. The bone marrow cells it described were lauded as an alternative to embryonic stem cells, offering the same potential to develop into any type of tissue but without the need to destroy an early-stage human embryo. At that time the U.S. government was wrestling with the ethics of funding stem cell research, and politicians opposed to work on embryos championed Verfaillie’s findings.

The paper’s tortured history illustrates some fundamental problems in the way that research is conducted and reported to the public. Too much depends on getting flashy papers making bold claims into high-profile journals. Funding and media coverage follow in their wake. But often, dramatic findings are hard to repeat or just plain wrong.

When such...