Article on suicide in Egypt retracted for double publication

A 2012 article published in the Journal of Forensic Sciences is being retracted because of an “overlap with a previous publication by the same authors.”

The corresponding author, Heba Yassa, a lecturer at Assiut University in Egypt, readily explained in an email exchange that the mix-up was due to a miscommunication with the editor of another journal, which she believed was not going to publish the article. “I know accidentally that the editor…published the article.”

The article, which examined suicides in one of the largest provinces in Egypt between 2005 and 2009, found rates had gone up since 1987, and men tended to use more violent methods than women.

Here’s the retraction notice:

‘Suicide trends in Upper Egypt’ by Wafaa M. Abdel Moneim, Heba A. Yassa, and Safaa M. George

The above article, published online on 17 August 2012 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com http://www.interscience.wiley.com/), has been retracted by agreement between the authors, the journal Editor in Chief, Michael Peat, the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, and Wiley Periodicals, Inc. The retraction has been agreed due to overlap with a previous publication by the same authors, ‘Suicide Rate: Trends and implications in Upper Egypt’ in the Egyptian Journal of Forensic Sciences (EJFS) (2011, 1;48–52).

Here’s more from Yassa:

The sequence was as follow I sent my article to the open access which was a new journal and that is the first issue of it, after I sent it to them I saw some confusion in the revision may be due to that was the first issue. They sent me a reply that my research need language edition, I do not reply to them and thought that is the end. Then I sent it to the second journal and proceed in it. After that I know accidentally that the editor did the language edition and published the article.

After that I know that the copyright of the open accessed journal is belongs to the authors and I thought that there is no problem.

The journal’s editor, Michael A. Peat, did not reply to our request for comment.

The article has been cited once, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

Hat tip: Dan Vergano

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