Here’s a retraction notice after our own hearts.
Brain Research Bulletin, an Elsevier journal, has retracted a 2017 article which duplicated a substantial amount of previously published papers by some of the same authors. But unlike many journals, which merely point out the overlap, BRB explains to readers why the copying matters.
The article, “Erythropoietin rescues primary rat cortical neurons from pyroptosis and apoptosis via Erk1/2-Nrf2/Bach1 signal pathway,” was written by Rui Li, Li-Min Zhang and Wen-Bo Sun, anesthesiologists at Cangzhou Central Hospital in China.
According to the notice:
This article has been retracted at the request of the Editor-in-Chief.
The article duplicates significant parts of papers that had already appeared in J Neurol Sci. 2017 Jan 15; 372:171–177. doi: 10.1016/j.jns.2016.11.055, Biomed Pharmacother. 2017 Mar; 87:332–341. doi: 10.1016/j.biopha.2016.12.115 and Neurochem Res. 2017 Jan 12. doi: 10.1007/s11064-017-2174-3. Redundant publications jeopardize the integrity of the scientific literature. They overweigh the relative importance of published findings and distort the academic record of the authors. All authors agree with this retraction.
Andres Buonanno, the editor-in-chief of the journal, told us:
That wording was arrived at after confirming that the authors had misled our Journal, and working with Elsevier (the Publisher) to stress the impact of scientific misconduct when submitting the same work to more than one Journal for publication.
Buonanno added:
we will continue to use this type of language when it is clear authors have acted in bad faith and articles are retracted.
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