A journal has retracted a 2012 paper after determining that the authors had already published it elsewhere.
According to the retraction notice, the editors-in-chief of the Journal of Occupational Medicine and Toxicology concluded that the article had been published in another journal—In Vitro Cellular & Developmental Biology – Animal—the previous month. The authors, however, did not agree to the retraction.
The research, led by Ali Khavanin, who is based at Tarbiat Modares University in Tehran, Iran and is corresponding author on both papers, evaluated whether the vibrations from industrial machinery can harm hearing in rabbits (1, 2).
Here’s the retraction notice for “Assessment of the influence of whole body vibration on Cochlear function”:
The Editors-in-Chief are retracting this article [1] as it has already been published in In Vitro Cellular & Developmental Biology – Animal [2]. The authors do not agree with this retraction.
- Moussavi-Najarkola S, Khavanin A, Mirzaei R, Salehnia M, Akbari M. Assessment of the influence of whole body vibration on Cochlear function. Journal of Occupational Medicine and Toxicology. 2012;7:12.
- Moussavi-Najarkola S, Khavanin A, Mirzaei R, Salehnia M, Akbari M. Effects of whole body vibration on outer hair cells’ hearing response to distortion product otoacoustic emissions. In Vitro Cell Dev Biol Anim. 2012;48(5):276–83.
The 2012 paper has been cited once, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science.
The timeline from submission to publication of both papers was similar. The retracted paper was submitted to the Journal of Occupational Medicine and Toxicology on Aug. 16, 2011, accepted May 4, 2012, and published online June 21, 2012. The authors submitted the other paper slightly later—on Sept. 3, 2011—but the journal, In Vitro Cellular & Developmental Biology – Animal, accepted and published the manuscript earlier—Feb. 3, 2012 and May 2, 2012, respectively.
The authors published several other papers on the same topic in 2012 and 2013 (1, 2, 3).
The publisher, Springer, referred us to the retraction notice. We’ve also reached out to the authors, and will provide an update if we hear back.
Hat tip: Rolf Degen
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