The Journal of Pregnancy has retracted a 2012 article by a pair of researchers in Iran who lifted the contents from an article published 10 years previous.
The paper, “The Effects of Fetal Gender on Serum Human Chorionic Gonadotropin and Testosterone in Normotensive and Preeclamptic Pregnancies,” was written by Nahid Lorzadeh and Sirous Kazemirad, OBs at Lorestan University of Medical Sciences. It has yet to be cited, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.
Here’s the notice:
The paper titled “The Effects of Fetal Gender on Serum Human Chorionic Gonadotropin and Testosterone in Normotensive and Preeclamptic Pregnancies” [1], published in Journal of Pregnancy, has been retracted as it is found to contain a substantial amount of material from the paper “Human chorionic gonadotropin and testosterone in normal and preeclamptic pregnancies in relation to fetal sex,” authored by Johan Arnt Steier, Magnar Ulstein, and Ole L. Myking, and it is published in “Obstetrics & Gynecology” in September 2002.
The notice suggests plagiarism, but it also leaves open the possibility that material other than text was duplicated. The retracted paper does reference the 2002 article (number two in the list). But it also contains some pretty close echoes. For example, from the retracted paper:
This is a cross-sectional study and 139 women with singleton pregnancies in the third trimester were studied. Seventy-one pregnancies were uncomplicated; among those were 35 male and 36 female fetuses. Sixty-eight pregnancies were complicated by preeclampsia; among those were 35 male and 33 female fetuses. Human chorionic gonadotropin and total testosterone were measured in maternal peripheral blood.
And the 2002 article:
The study consisted of 137 women with singleton pregnancies in the third trimester. Seventy-three pregnancies were uncomplicated; among those were 35 male and 38 female fetuses. Sixty-four pregnancies were complicated by preeclampsia; among those were 33 male and 31 female fetuses. Human chorionic gonadotropin and total testosterone were measured in maternal peripheral blood.
From the retracted paper:
In male-bearing pregnancies, maternal hCG and testosterone serum levels were significantly higher in preeclamptic than normotensive mothers (