This was an interesting start to the week: An  Organic Letters week, where a further 5 additions and corrections to papers all published this time by the Nakada group, appeared. Apparently again these were all due to removal of solvent and impurity peaks in the submitted NMR spectra linked to a series of natural product synthesis  (just one example quoted here) and synthetic methodology. I’ll say it again, “Now this is bad enough, but of course the removal of impurities leads to an improved yield when calculated by NMR, which creates a false impression of the experimental effectiveness”. Really this should not be expected to happen from departments in Japanese universities or any university for that matter. It’s as if re-submitting the true data makes everything OK, makes you wonder what else may be wrong here? Yet another unfortunate chapter in the pages of Organic Letters due to no fault of their own.

I don’t read this journal every day to be mis-led by doctored data and I am glad the Editor is actively doing something about it, however it should not happen in the first place. Genuine errors and mistakes happen to everyone, but data manipulation not. What’s wrong with including solvent peaks and the odd impurity peak(s)? Nothing to be ashamed of, everyone has them in spectra. I hope that no more turn up, but volume 16 is still in its infancy.