Journal retracts CrossFit injury article
A 2013 article by Ohio State University researchers that became the focus of lawsuits over its statement that people suffered injuries while taking part in the popular CrossFit workout regimen has been retracted from an academic journal.
That follows a 2015 correction of the same work in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research.
The original article said that nine of 54 people dropped out of the study because of “injury or overuse” while working out at Mitchell D. Potterf IV’s Ohio Fit Club gym in Columbus. The article was corrected by the National Strength and Conditioning Association after overstating the number of participants injured during the study.
Potterf, who agreed to participate in the researchers’ 10-week study of the CrossFit program, sued in federal court, the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas and the Ohio Court of Claims.
CrossFit also sued the journal’s publisher in federal court over the article. Defendants have varied from court to court and include Ohio State University, the National Strength and Conditioning Association and OSU researchers Steven Devor and Michael M. Smith.
A federal court agreed last year with Potterf’s complaint that the injury data was incorrect. The NSCA has stated no impeding injuries or health conditions resulted from participation in the study.
“The retraction issued ... by the NSCA is the very same relief that Mr. Potterf and Ohio Fit Club sought long before even filing suit over the article,” Patrick Quinn, an attorney representing Potterf and Ohio Fit Club, said in a prepared statement.
The retraction ultimately was issued because the study was not approved by the university’s institutional review board. The article had stated otherwise.
“Ohio State works to have one of the highest quality research programs anywhere in the world, and we are successful in that,” university spokesman Chris Davey said. “When research is called into question, we take that very seriously.”
He said Devor resigned on May 31, a day after the retraction notice was issued. Smith was a graduate student at the time of the study and has since left Ohio State.
Davey said that leading up to the retraction, the university had investigated the matter and subsequently required Devor to seek either a correction or retraction, reduced his pay by 33 percent for the remainder of the year and barred him from having official contact with graduate students and from being a principal researcher for the remainder of his time at the university.
Ohio State has had other articles retracted.
This year, a 2012 video game study by OSU researchers was retracted because of data irregularities. Several months later, Dr. Carlo Croce, cancer researcher and chair of the university’s College of Medicine’s Department of Cancer Biology and Genetics, was the subject of a New York Times story that detailed allegations of data falsification and research misconduct.
College of Pharmacy professor Terry Elton agreed to retract six studies after the U.S. Office of Research Integrity concluded in 2012 that his research papers included falsified images.
He was subsequently banned from receiving federal research funding for three years. Since then, Elton has had a seventh retraction, according to the blog Retraction Watch.
Davey said the number of retractions is minuscule compared to how many papers are published. About 4,400 OSU researchers wrote more than 10,000 articles in 2016, he said.
“We don’t have evidence to suggest that there is an increased incidence of retractions here at Ohio State, or generally,” he said.
Still, he added, “one retraction is too many.”
Dr. Ivan Oransky, cofounder of Retraction Watch and distinguished writer in residence at New York University’s Arthur Carter Journalism Institute, said Ohio State’s retractions don’t “set off any alarm bells.”
Oransky said there are about 800 retractions worldwide each year. Of those, about two-thirds are because of academic misconduct.
In the past decade, OSU researchers have been connected to 11 retracted articles, according to a database kept by Retraction Watch.
Among other Big Ten schools, Indiana University is associated with 10 retractions, while the University of Michigan is associated with 21.
Davey said scrutiny is welcomed.
“This is a good thing, because it brings transparency, credibility and accountability to scientific research, which, over the long run, can only help the cause,” he said. “The institution of science itself can only be helped by this.”