The Office of Research Integrity, part of the Department of Health and Human Services, has confirmed to an advocacy group that it is investigating the circumstances of five now-retracted papers for possible academic misconduct. Questions surrounding the research, which involved causing brain trauma to 30 newborn piglets, are piling up, but very little in the way of explanation has been offered by the university that hosted the experiments or the journals that published them.
Between 2016 and 2019, several research papers led by then–University of Pennsylvania pharmacy researcher William Armstead on neuromolecular outcomes following traumatic brain injury were published in a handful of journals, including the Journal of Neurotrauma and Pediatric Research. The research involved administering percussive brain injuries to piglets using a piston that both displaces and deforms neural tissue, according to Retraction Watch.
Earlier this year, five of those papers, all coauthored by Armstead, who is now retired, ...
