Urologist blames Big Pharma as concerns mount over his research

With retractions piling up and more than a dozen expressions of concern now added to the list of his publishing woes, a urologist in Iran claims his research is being targeted by American drugmaker Johnson & Johnson.

Mohammad Reza Safarinejad, who offered no evidence for his allegations, says he retired from academia about 10 years ago and now runs a private clinic in Tehran. He has published scores of studies on topics ranging from treatments for premature ejaculation to saffron’s effect on semen, some of which have garnered hundreds of citations. 

Starting in 2011, however, journals began pulling his papers over such issues as failure to verify data and inappropriate statistical analyses. The latest retraction, from August 2022, brings the tally up to 15, according to the Retraction Watch Database. And on January 10, The Journal of Urology issued expressions of concern for 14 of his papers, which have been cited a total of nearly 800 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science.

The journal states:

Until the authors and their institutions can fully provide additional information, readers should interpret the findings presented with caution. An update will be provided when our investigation is complete.

When Retraction Watch emailed Safarinejad for comments, he responded:

Since 2006 after publishing two articles about Dapoxetine, Johnson & Johnson Company is all trying to hit and retract my articles. During these years I have received too many fake emails and letters. I don’t know who you are and who do you work for.. But I know well that if the author’s rights are lost, he/she can do nothing. Most likely you are also from Johnson & Johnson Company.

He elaborated in another email:

Publishing two articles about Dapoxetine had great impact in drop down of this drug as a drug of choice for treatment of premature of ejaculation by FDA. Despite extensive efforts of J&J company using hired physicians and Editor-in Chiefs of dependent journals to hit me in any way I was among 2 percent of world scientists in 2020.

Johnson & Johnson did not respond to requests for comment. But Jennifer Regala, director of publications at the American Urological Association, which publishes The Journal of Urology, told Retraction Watch by email:

I can confirm that the Journal’s Editorial Office and Dr. [Robert] Siemens [the journal’s editor] have not been contacted by Johnson & Johnson.

We have also reached out to Dr. Safarinejad as part of our investigation but have not received a response.

The Expression of Concern statements will remain on these articles until our investigation is complete.

The journal’s actions come on the heels of a letter to the editor in Andrologia by data sleuth Ben Mol and his colleagues that spotlighted suspicious numbers in seven of the Iranian researcher’s clinical trials (none of them was published in The Journal of Urology, but one is the 2006 study on dapoxetine that Safarinejad said set off his troubles). Two of those studies, for instance, include rows of six data points that are entirely identical. 

A month after the letter was published, Mol brought his concerns to editors and publishers of several journals, including The Journal of Urology. He pointed out that Safarinejad’s top papers had been cited hundreds of times. “Through these citations,” he wrote in an email seen by Retraction Watch, “fake data is continuously being implemented into reviews that are used for clinical practice.”

When asked if he had any financial ties to Johnson & Johnson, Mol told us, “Nope, not at all.” 

On his LinkedIn profile, Safarinejad claims that he has “been selected among the list that represents the top 2 percent of the most-cited scientists in the world” and has an H-index of 41. This could change if he is found to have committed scientific misconduct.

Safarinejad told Retraction Watch:

All of my articles have been retracted with reason of “Inappropriate Analyses”!!??  The related journals didn’t accept to publish my reply. I proposed that all the article data be published on the Journal site as supplementary materials and the readers be the final judges. In addition we invite three well known independent statisticians and comment on the statistical analysis of the articles.  Now we face a new scenario (expressions of concern) . I have not even received any letters or emails in this regard. Do you know what is their concern? I don’t know what is the subject. The Journal of Urology was the only journal that had resisted all the pressures so far. This journal seems to have surrendered too. Do you know what can I do? There is close relationship between pharmaceutical company and scientists and journals, there are many ghost writers, there are many hired writers and scientists etc.

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