Elsevier journal temporarily removes article by prolific psychologist – with a typo at “frist”

An Elsevier psychology journal took down an article in early December with a notice that appeared to be an internal memo, including a typo. 

The article, a letter titled “First COVID-19 suicide case in Bangladesh due to fear of COVID-19 and xenophobia: Possible suicide prevention strategies,” was published in June of 2020 in the Asian Journal of Psychiatry by Mark D. Griffiths of Nottingham Trent University in the UK and Mohammed A. Mamun of Jahangirnagar University and the Undergraduate Research Organization in Dhaka, Bangladesh. It has been cited more than 300 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science. 

Griffiths’ high publishing rate – according to his university’s index he published nearly 200 journal articles in 2022 – came under scrutiny from Oxford University psychologist Dorothy Bishop in 2020, including his many collaborations with Mamun. Griffiths told the Times Higher Education that he “made an intellectual contribution to every refereed paper I’ve published.” 

In September of 2022, an anonymous user on PubPeer commented on the June 2020 article from the Asian Journal of Psychiatry, sharing a letter to the editor published in Perspectives in Psychiatric Care expressing “a number of concerns” about a similar article by Griffiths and Mamun with other coauthors. 

Bishop commented in October, pointing out that the article used the name of the person who had died by suicide and did not conform to other guidelines for media reporting on suicide. She wrote: 

It is not clear what scientific value there is in such a report, which has potential to cause harm.

In November, another anonymous user posted a long comment detailing questions about the evidence the authors had for multiple statements in the article, based on the news report that they cited. 

The journal acted in early December, taking down the article and replacing it with this notice: 

Frist [sic] and the foremost, the paper mentions the name of a person who committed suicide (in the third paragraph). Besides, there are comments in pubpeer doubts [sic] the scientific value and scientific rigor of the paper. The editor in chief and I are looking into this. In the meantime, in order to protect the person’s privacy, we ask you to help us take it down temporarily.

We emailed Rajiv Tandon, a professor emeritus of psychiatry at Western Michigan University and the journal’s editor in chief, asking about the notice. An Elsevier spokesperson replied: 

We can confirm there was a glitch with our content platform, which led to the publishing of the internal message instead of the removal notice. 

Our team is working to resolve this issue and to post the corrected notice – which will explain that the paper has been temporarily removed and will either be replaced or reinstated as soon as we reasonably can. The publisher has confirmed that the removal is due to a violation of our ethical policies, which state that we do not mention names of suicide victims.

Later in December, the publisher replaced the first notice (archived here), with this one: 

The publisher regrets that this article has been temporarily removed. A replacement will appear as soon as possible in which the reason for the removal of the article will be specified, or the article will be reinstated.

We also reached out to Mamun and Griffiths for comment on the paper’s removal and the PubPeer comments. Mamun told us: 

I have checked the PubPeer comments and found nothing special to respond to. 

First, they claimed the victim’s privacy was disclosed. This is not the first disclosure of the victim in our paper. The suicide was reported in many newspapers, on TV, and shared on social media. We used publicly available information, and it is not the first paper published by the AJP; you can check here is another paper (you may get other papers too), for example, disclosed the name of suicide victims: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1876201820304950  

Another claim in the PubPeer was we used only a reference where they did not find the information in the cited newspaper. This is apparently right for people living outside Bangladesh and probably never tried to reach us about other sources or any clarification before commenting in the PubPeer. Being the first suicide related to COVID-19, it was the talk of the country, and there were several reports, and posts on social media about it. In addition, I communicated with people known to the victim before writing the correspondence. 

We are waiting for hearing from the editor, as well as, will address all the comments formally, but not in the PubPeer.

Griffiths shared with us the formal response to the journal, which we’ve made available here. It includes point-by-point responses to the PubPeer comments, and additional news articles that the authors said could not be included as references due to the journal’s limitations. 

Mamun later told us: 

I would like to let you know that the publisher will reinstate the article as we had nothing wrong regarding all the claims made in PubPeer. 

In September of 2018, Nottingham Trent University sent a letter to Julian Derry, who had criticized Griffiths and another university professor on his blog, stating that “the content of your blog raises concerns of defamation for this University and its employees” and requesting that he remove it.

Like Retraction Watch? You can make a tax-deductible contribution to support our work, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, add us to your RSS reader, or subscribe to our daily digest. If you find a retraction that’s not in our database, you can let us know here. For comments or feedback, email us at [email protected].