Retracting research

I was disappointed to read that Columbia University chemistry professor Dalibor Sames retracted four more scientific papers (C&EN Online Latest News, June 16). I wonder if this is a trend of a professor and student getting into serious trouble and putting the future of U.S. chemistry, which is the envy of the world, in jeopardy.

I was also surprised to learn that Sames was asked to police himself by trying to redo the experiments, while the student who conducted the experiments had moved on to a German university and was pursuing a doctorate in another subject area. Can someone at ACS explain to us what is really going on here? Should professors supervising graduate students in chemistry be more vigilant in monitoring what is going on in their labs and making sure our chemistry research is not tainted by students who are not careful in recording their findings in lab notebooks? The lab notebooks should be carefully examined before signing off on students' findings so that we don't have the situation that has happened at Columbia. I'm sure other ACS members would also like the answer to the questions I have raised here.

Paul C. Mengnjoh
Steger, Ill.