Veterinary researcher banned from journal after fourth forthcoming retraction

A veterinary researcher with three retracted papers and one marked with an expression of concern has another retraction on the way, Retraction Watch has learned. 

The first retraction for Tereza Cristina Cardoso da Silva, of the University of São Paulo State in Brazil, came in 2019. As we reported at the time, the retracted paper, about herpesvirus infections in cattle, had reused an image from an earlier paper describing experiments with chicken cells. (We would apologize for the headline of that post, but we just couldn’t resist.)

Since then, Cardoso has lost two more papers for similarly reusing images of different species of animals, and had another article flagged with an expression of concern that mentions an institutional investigation into her work which culminated in a “Disciplinary Administrative Procedure.” A fourth retraction is in the works, per an email we were copied on from a journal editor to the whistleblower who identified another image reused between species. 

The paper to be retracted is “Upregulation of INF-γ, IL-6, and IL-8 expression during replication of turkey coronavirus in nonepithelial cells obtained from Meleagris gallopavo,” published in Archives of Virology, a SpringerNature title, in 2021. It has yet to be cited, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science. 

On Sunday, Aug. 7 of this year, an anonymous whistleblower emailed Archives of Virology editor-in-chief Tim Skern of the Medical University of Vienna a PDF detailing image reuse among Cardoso’s papers, including the 2021 paper published in his journal. 

A figure from the turkey coronavirus paper contained a panel identical to one in a 2012 paper describing experiments with cells derived from bovine umbilical cords, the whistleblower said, “in yet another miraculous species transformation.”  

Skern replied the next day that he agreed the images were identical, and said he had begun the retraction process: 

Thank you for sending this careful summary of Dr. Cardoso’s image reuse. I received via SpringerNature from the same email address that you used a similar list as well as the specific comment on the 2021 Archives of Virology publication on 24th June, 2022.

I compared the two images and came to the conclusion that an image from 2012 has indeed been reused in the 2021 Archives of Virology manuscript. After consultation with SpringerNature’s research integrity group,  I contacted Dr. Cardoso on 16th July, 2022 to ask for a satisfactory explanation within four weeks. Yesterday,7th August, 2022, I received an email from her with an analysis purporting to show that the images were not the same. The analysis is incorrect and does not show that the images are different.

I have no longer confidence in this publication and have instructed SpringerNature to print an “editorial expression of concern” and instigate the retraction process.

Archives of Virology will no longer accept any submissions from Dr. Cardoso.

I ask all recipients of this email to keep this information confidential. [RW: We were copied on the email without having agreed to any confidentiality.] The retraction notice will appear in due course.

Once again, thank you for your conscientious and meticulous work to keep the scientific literature free of dubious practices.

We emailed Skern to ask how much longer the expression of concern and retraction might take. (Doing both when a retraction is already planned is unusual.) He said he “would not like to comment further on this issue until the retraction has been published,” but also told us: 

The EoC and the retraction notice are in the hands of the SpringerNature research integrity group (RIG). The RIG has written the retraction text which I approved a couple of weeks ago. From my experience of retractions, I would expect the EoC and the retraction to be on-line in a few weeks, but the final date will depend on the RIG’s workload. I will of course keep asking for updates on the progress.

In response to our request for comment, Cardoso sent us the slides she emailed Skern. In them, she wrote: 

I have to inform you Sir that both figures are not identical. I am sorry to disappointed. First they have 10 years of difference, must have a look at definition and colour. Moreover, I do not have the original image anymore. Second, the computational analysis was used and the respective results are described by a specialist.

After including side-by-side analysis of the images she said showed they were not identical, she wrote: 

In conclusion, certain that you Sir are going to retract the article based on your conviction of identity I have to disagree. However, all authors would like to ask that our position, if possible, could be expressed at your retraction note. “ The authors do not agree that these figures are identical based on computational analysis”. The authors agreement is very important.

In April of this year, the Wiley journal Veterinary and Comparative Oncology published an expression of concern on a paper of Cardoso’s from 2015, “Tumour necrosis factor-alpha-induced protein 8 (TNFAIP8) expression associated with cell survival and death in cancer cell lines infected with canine distemper virus.” 

The expression of concern stated that the ethics committee of the University of São Paulo State began an institutional investigation of Cardoso’s work in June 2019, which continued to a “Disciplinary Administrative Procedure”: 

This Expression of Concern is for the above article, first published online on 16 September 2015 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com), and has been published by agreement between the journal’s Co-Editors, Professor Douglas Thamm and Professor Stefano Comazzi, and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. The expression of concern has been agreed as the Co-Editors have continued concerns about the data reported in Table 1. An institutional investigation by the Ethics Committee at the University of São Paulo State (UNESP) into a number of articles published by Dr Tereza Cristina Cardoso, the corresponding author of the above article, commenced in June 2019. The Ethics Committee determined that Table 1 in Dr Cardoso’s Veterinary and Comparative Oncology article presented the same data for the control and staurosporine-treated cells as reported in two other articles authored by Dr Cardoso, published in Veterinary Microbiology (1) and Archives of Virology (2), although the data were reported to have been conducted with different cells using different molecular markers. UNESP concluded that the author’s explanation for the identical data across the three articles was unsatisfactory and a Disciplinary Administrative Procedure was invoked which was completed on 3rd January 2022. The Veterinary and Comparative Oncology article was published before the Veterinary Microbiology and Archives of Virology articles, both of which contained duplicated data from Table 1. The UNESP investigation did not investigate the provenance of the data included in the Veterinary and Comparative Oncology article. However, following the conclusions of UNESP’s investigation, the Co-Editors have continued concerns about the data in Table 1 as the corresponding author had previously provided an unsatisfactory explanation for the overlap between the data in the three articles. The Co-Editors raised this concern to UNESP in their communications sent on 5th June 2019. As a result, the journal is issuing this expression of concern.

We emailed UNESP and Cardoso for comment on the investigation and disciplinary procedure. Cardoso responded: 

This episode is under justice at now.

As soon I have news I will send to you

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