Agriculture researcher up to 15 retractions for fake peer review

Christos Damalas, an agriculture researcher at Democritus University of Thrace, has had more papers retracted from Elsevier journals for fake peer review reports, giving him a total of 15.

The three most recent retractions appear, as did some previously, in Science of the Total Environment. Damalas also had papers retracted from Chemosphere and Land Use Policy in October. We reported on nine of his retractions last October. (For background on how fake peer review works, read this.)

Here’s a typical notice (the repeated “request of” appears in the three from Science of the Total Environment):

This article has been retracted at the request of request of the Editors-in-Chief.

After a thorough investigation, the Editors have concluded that the acceptance of this article was partly based upon the positive advice of two illegitimate reviewer reports. The reports were submitted from email accounts which were provided by the corresponding author Christos A. Damalas as suggested reviewers during the submission of the article. Although purportedly real reviewer accounts, the Editors have concluded that these were not of appropriate, independent reviewers.

This manipulation of the peer-review process represents a clear violation of the fundamentals of peer review, our publishing policies, and publishing ethics standards. Apologies are offered to the reviewers whose identity was assumed and to the readers of the journal that this deception was not detected during the submission process.

‘Absolutely unjust’

Damalas did not respond to requests for comment from Retraction Watch. When we caught up with him in October of last year, he forwarded us a letter he had sent Elsevier saying that “the decision for retraction was absolutely unjust:”

On a personal basis, it will be really unfair for me, who I have helped numerous authors to publish their research, if you do not cancel your decision for the retractions. 

Damalas told us at the time:

I do not know anything about the reviewers and the review process.

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