Well we’re in a fine mess when it comes to cancer preclinical research, with retraction after retraction, and sometimes downright fraud. How’d it GET so bad—and what can we do to fix it up, and get back in the business of helping patients?

Just when you thought you could trust cancer research published in the most prestigious journals, it turns out the articles have to be retracted with alarming regularity. Read some of the funnier, crazier, most upsetting retractions in the past few years:

Alll that researcher time, and government and private investor money? Seems study after study is no good, even after it receives the gold-medal treatment in premeir journals. It’s a fine mess we’re in, if we’re relying on cancer labs to come up with new cures for very serious illnesses.

Cancer cells stolen from an unsuspecting Henrietta Lacks become the first human cells to grow in the lab—and, in fact, become immortal AND virulent, taking over lab after lab, and destroying one cancer research project after another.  Seems that Ms. Lacks got some posthoumous satisfaction, after all.