A common ailment known as duplication has taken down a paper about a common fungus and asthma.
Aspergillus spores are often ubiquitous yet harmless, but can irritate people whose lungs aren’t in top working order. Duplication, on the other hand, is more universally deadly. The editors of The Pan African Medical Journal told us that, in addition to the retraction, there were personal consequences for the authors:
The authors were banned from publishing in the journal for 5 years and instructed to pay back the fees associated with the processing of their manuscript
According to the retraction note, this article is an “exact copy” of one published in another journal. Here’s a translation of the retraction note, completed by by One Hour Translation:
We inform all readers of PAMJ that we have retracted the manuscript on “Allergic Bronchiopulmonary Aspergillosis During Persistent Asthma: a clinical case” (doi:0.11604/pamj.2015.20.350.6572) by Khalid Lahmadi, Hind El Youss, Jawad Rochdi, Boughrine Nawal and Er-Rami Mohammed from the Parasitology Laboratory, Moulay Ismail Military Hospital in Meknes, Meknes, Morocco [1]. Following our investigation, it appears undeniable that the manuscript submitted by Khalid Lahmadi et al., published in PAMJ on April 10, 2015, was purely plagiarized by the authors. Indeed, the manuscript submitted by Khalid Lahmadi, Hind El Youss, Jawad Rochdi, Boughrine Nawal and Er-Rami Mohammed from the Parasitology Laboratory, Moulay Ismail Military Hospital in Meknes, Meknes, Morocco, published in PAMJ is an exact copy of the manuscript “Allergic Bronchio-Pulmonary Aspergillosis: diagnosis to be retained during persistent asthma” (24(2)- e82; doi:10.1016/j.mycmed.2014.01.089) by I. Tlamçani, S. Benjelloun, H. Deham, and M. Er-Rami, published in the Journal of Medical Mycology [Journal de Mycologie Médicale] [2]. As a result, we have retracted this article from the medical literature in compliance with the guidelines and best editorial practices issued by the Committee on Publication Ethics. We beg our readers to excuse is for this unfortunate situation.
The article is not indexed in Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.
The editors told us how the duplication came to light:
The plagiarism was reported by a researcher with interest in the topic and had come across the plagiarised article before
Although the journal refers to the papers as plagiarized copies, since they appear to share the last author (Mohammed Er-Rami), they are technically duplicates.
We could not find contact information for Er-Rami.
Like Retraction Watch? Consider making a tax-deductible contribution to support our growth. You can also follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, add us to your RSS reader, and sign up on our homepage for an email every time there’s a new post. Click here to review our Comments Policy.
Thanks to RW for noting that “Although the journal refers to the papers as plagiarized copies, since they appear to share the last author . . . they are technically duplicates.” Right, so-called “self-plagiarism” is not “plagiarism” of the work of another person without credit — rather it is duplicate publication, including copyright violation.