If the writers of “Welcome Back, Kotter” wanted to issue a retraction statement, it might look something like this one from Mary Ann Liebert. We’ll call this one a hat tip to Juan Luis Pedro Felipo de Huevos Epstein, a Sweathog whose permission slips “from his mother” became a meme.
The paper in question appeared in 2016 in Cancer Biotherapy and Radiopharmaceuticals and written by a group in China led by Liqun Yang, of the Third Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical Center and the State Key Laboratory of Silkworm Genome Biology at Southwest University in Chongqing.
In November 2021, Yang emailed the journal asking to swap out the original figure in the article with a corrected version. What Yang didn’t know was that a week earlier, the journal had received word of a post on PubPeer raising questions about the figures in the paper.
The post received the following response from someone writing as co-author Hongjuan Cui:
Dear Sir, I appreciate your help to find these concerns in our publications. I’m so shamed fo all these problems. We will repeat these experiments and update to you ASAP. I also self-check all our publications one by one. Please help me to find more problems and we try to fix them. Your best, Hongjuan
Suspicions raised, the journal reached out to Yang et al’s institution to confirm the story. Heather Malloy, the senior manager for peer review operations at Mary Ann Liebert, told us:
It’s not all that rare that an author request ‘coincidentally’ comes in after a pubpeer comment (on one of “our” papers or on a different one) and we will of course cross-reference. And we’re always going to independently verify, no matter how we get notified.
After “several” tries, the publisher received a reply reminiscent of one of Epstein’s trademark notes from his “mother.”
Yang hasn’t responded to our requests for comment. Here’s how the notice describes what happened:
Cancer Biotherapy and Radiopharmaceuticals (CBR) officially retracts the article entitled, “PHOX2B Is Associated with Neuroblastoma Cell Differentiation,” by Liqun Yang, Xiao-Xue Ke, Fan Xuan, Juan Tan, Jianbing Hou, Mei Wang, Hongjuan Cui, and Yundong Zhang (Cancer Biother Radiopharm 2016;31(2):44–51; doi: 10.1089/cbr.2015.1952).
Readers are advised that the CBR editorial office received a request via email from the first author, Dr. Liqun Yang, to replace Figure 3, indicating, “This article contains some errors in figure 3. In figure 3A (RA-7d) and figure 3C, we mixed up images from different groups when we prepared the figure. Unfortunately, these mistakes were not corrected when we submitted the manuscript.” This request came after the appearance of a comment posted to the PubPeer platform.1
The publisher of the journal made several attempts to contact the authors’ institutions to inquire about the veracity of the study and the claimed error, and though a reply was eventually received, it did not appear to be official institutional documentation and was not signed by an institutional official’s name but rather only by the institutional name, nor did it provide a comprehensive defensible explanation, rendering it unacceptable (see Fig. R1). The Publisher responded to all authors and to the sender of the “declaration” by stating that the document was not admissible and that the article would be officially retracted. No further response or rebuttal was received.
FIG. R1. Insufficient declaration letter received by Editor and publisher.
Cancer Biotherapy & Radiopharmaceuticals is committed to upholding the rigorous standards of scientific publishing and the veracity of the literature.
Susan Jensen, the director of production and editorial operations at Mary Ann Liebert, called the case “a journey” and added that:
we are working hard to ensure that our retraction notices are as detailed and transparent as possible.
Even Epstein’s mother would approve, I’d think!
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I think the blockquotes are messed up at the end. Here are a few slashes, in case you are running short: /////////////
Thanks, just one, “Susan Jensen, the director of production…” Fixed.
An anonymous Pubpeer contributor might be gratified to see Reference 1 within the Retraction Note:
1. Actinopolyspora biskrensis. https://pubpeer.com/publications/C4F159C77D012DDDB38D6B930B12AA
Cool!
I think you are reacting coyly here.
Although certainly not an expert on Chinese academic practices, I have published a paper from data collected in China with honorable and able Chinese authors. In my experience, that little red stamp on the Chinese institution’s declaration means something equivalent to a signature from an institutional leader, perhaps more authoritative than a signature. It is presumptuous of you to equate that document with a forged “note from my mother.”
The co-author wrote a nice note apologizing for the error and asking for help. His English was not too good. Do you (and Mary Ann Liebert) enjoy making fun of him?
Who knows what trouble these authors underwent to get this article published in English? Possibly the lead author does not speak English at all and that is why the journal did not hear directly from him. Maybe there was miscommunication with whatever service they used to get their work translated and submitted.
Arrogance proceeds from ignorance–at least mine seems to. As you pull up your petticoats in horror at this supposed transgression, you expose at least an ankle’s worth of ignorance.
The explanation above by Jonathan Brown is spot-on. I worked for more than 8 years at a top Chinese university earlier in my career and can attest that having a declaration issued with an official red stamp is equivalent to formal institutional endorsement. Red stamps are the “currency” in Chinese bureaucracy, not signatures.
If it’s such a great letter, why won’t any of the responsible people at the institution put their names to it? And why isn’t there any reference to their process for determining that the paper is worthwhile? The point isn’t some stupid signature or stamp, the point is that there’s no traceable process here.
This is really ignorant from RW and the publisher as the above commenters also attest. Chinese universities provide stamps, and in order to get one, you need to have institutional approval. The above letter seems completely valid to me. In China it is impossible to get a stamp without receiving institutional approval. Signatures bear absolutely no value in China (as well as other parts of Asia), and that the authors are being made fun of here, or having their paper retracted by the publisher, is just a very sad state of affairs (for a lack of better wording).
There is a a cultural gap – but it goes both ways. While chops (red stamps) are important in China, the medical university should have also understood the importance of individual accountability in the West. Chinese signatures with pinyin underneath plus the chop would have addressed cultural expectations in both China and the West.
It seems that 50 cent armies (Wumao) are here. hehehe
Up their nose with a rubber hose!