The Australian understands a whistleblower lodged a complaint about the study, whose lead author was former UQ professor Bruce Murdoch, an internationally renowned expert on speech and language disorders.
UQ vice-chancellor Peter Hoj said the university had asked the European Journal of Neurology to retract the paper, and it had agreed, on the grounds "no primary data can be located, and no evidence has been found that the study described in the article was conducted".
Professor Murdoch had run the university's Centre for Neurogenic Communication Disorders Research. He is no longer employed at UQ and could not be contacted last night.
There has been no finding of misconduct against anybody. The investigation is continuing.
Mr Hoj said the retraction meant the global scientific community would be alerted that the study could not be relied on for further research.
The study, Treatment of articulatory dysfunction in Parkinson's disease using repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation, was published online by the journal in October 2011. Professor Murdoch was lead author, with a researcher from the Speech Science Laboratory at the University of Hong Kong also cited.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/uq-pulls-study-on-lack-of-evidence/story-e6frgcjx-1226710106648
