A biochemistry study has been retracted nearly a year after a whistleblower found significant overlap between the article and one published in a different journal by the same research group.
The study, “Berberine ameliorates renal injury in diabetic C57BL/6 mice: Involvement of suppression of SphK–S1P signaling pathway,” appeared in the journal Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics in July 2010. It has been cited 76 times.
The study examines how berberine, a compound found in plants such as tree turmeric, might improve kidney injury in diabetic mice. People sometimes take berberine supplements to help treat diabetes, but the evidence for its effectiveness is mixed. The authors of the paper are researchers at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China.
The study was retracted on May 23 at the request of the journal’s editor-in-chief, according to the retraction notice. It states, in part:
This article shows significant data duplication and overlap with Liu, Weihua et al., Effects of berberine on matrix accumulation and NF-kappa B signal pathway in alloxan-induced diabetic mice with renal injury. European Journal of Pharmacology. 2010 Jul 25; 638(1–3):150-5 (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejphar.2010.04.033) without adequate referencing. Although there is a slight difference in the methodology section regarding alloxan-induced diabetes models in the two articles, there is a clear overlap between Table 2 of Lan, Tian et al. (2010); and Tables 1 and 2 of Liu, Weihua et al. (2010). The two manuscripts were submitted from the same laboratory in the same year.
In July 2022, Bardia Askari, an associate professor of biomedical sciences at the New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine in Old Westbury, noticed duplicated data and images in the two research papers. Askari was concerned enough that he decided to contact the publisher, Elsevier, by phone. In a later email message, which Askari provided to Retraction Watch, he wrote, in part:
I came across these observations when I was preparing a review on the benefits of nutraceuticals. I was very impressed by the well-organized and well-presented papers, “Effects of berberine on matrix accumulation and NF-kappa B signal pathway in alloxan-induced diabetic mice with renal injury”, DOI: 10.1016/j.ejphar.2010.04.033, published in the European Journal of Pharmacology (EJJ 638: 150–155) and “Berberine ameliorates renal injury in diabetic C57BL/6 mice: Involvement of suppression of SphK–S1P signaling pathway”, DOI: 10.1016/j.abb.2010.07.012, published in the Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics (APP (502 (2):112-120)… However, as I delved into the papers I began to see some very glaring issues.
In his message, Askari detailed each instance of duplication, including multiple cases of common data listed in data tables, a duplicated image that was only slightly altered between studies, and figures that appeared to show the same kidney sample. Yet the studies purported to describe separate animal studies, Askari wrote.
Eventually, a senior journal manager at Elsevier, which publishes Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics, told Askari she would pass on the message to an editor-in-chief of the journal. Several days later, Askari received a message from one such editor, Henry Jay Forman, saying that the journal would be “following up on your concerns” and would contact the corresponding author for an explanation. Forman added that the editors did not have the manuscript of the 10-year-old paper.
We don’t know if Askari’s concerns ever reached the editors of the other journal, the European Journal of Pharmacology. The study in that journal contains no signs of being under investigation.
In April, Askari received an email from an ethics editor at Elsevier informing him that the article would be retracted. The study was not pulled until late May, nearly 10 months after Askari initially contacted Elsevier.
Heqing Huang, the senior author of both studies, did not respond to an email from Retraction Watch. In reply to a question about the nearly year-long timeline of the retraction, Forman wrote that “the rules were followed, which cannot be rushed,” but referred any further comments to an ethics committee, which has not yet provided any comment to Retraction Watch. A spokesperson for Elsevier also said they were waiting to hear back from the ethics team.
Considering that the article was over 10 years old, Askari said in an email to Retraction Watch that it didn’t bother him that the journal took 10 months to retract it.
“There were no implications for clinical guidelines nor any modifications on current therapeutic practices,” he said. Given this, “there didn’t appear to be any need for urgency or [expedited] decision-making.”
Askari said it did bother him that he had to go into such detail about the duplication before his concerns were sent to the journal editors and investigated. In an email to Retraction Watch, he wrote, in part:
I went into excruciating detail about my thought process before I started the inquiry. Frankly, it bothered me that I had to do this, as being “science police” was not my intent or goal. I initiated this with the journals because I thought the use of duplicate data was flagrant and frankly, inexcusable.
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Henry Jay Forman
https://pubpeer.com/search?q=Henry+Jay+Forman
“This article shows …”
yes, but Journal failed to find it;
no, somebody (that is, Prof. Bardia Askari) spent so much time, expertise, and time to discover and report the problems with painful communicating with journal office. Journal needed to give more details and credit. Smething that journal with all its Editors, Reviewers, and Editorial Board mambers failed to do.
It needed proper citation to concerns in the Retraction Note. Immoral to neglect.
Notably (as documented here… https://psblab.org/?p=611) HHS ORI does not classify self-plagiarism as misconduct, because the data as-presented still accurately reflect the scientific record.
Paul, it depends: According to John Dahlberg, formerly of ORI:
“ORI often receives allegations of plagiarism that involve efforts by scientists to publish the same data in more than one journal article. Assuming that the duplicated figures represent the same experiment and are labeled the same in both cases (if not, possible falsification of data makes the allegation significantly more serious), this so-called ‘selfplagiarism’ does not meet the PHS research misconduct standard” (p. 4).
However, notice the last sentence from the following quote above:
“Askari detailed each instance of duplication, including multiple cases of common data listed in data tables, a duplicated image that was only slightly altered between studies, and figures that appeared to show the same kidney sample. Yet the studies purported to describe separate animal studies, Askari wrote.
So, if the duplicated data is coveyed as being derived from a different study, then it seems to me that this case does rise to the level of research misconduct as per ORI’s definition. Perhaps John or Alan Price will chime in.
Reference
1. Dahlberg, J. (2007). ORI Retains Its Working Definition of Plagiarism under New Regulation. ORI Newsletter 15, 4.
Correct. If the images/data are used to represent different experiments then it’s not straight self-plagiarism and would certainly fall under the purview of ORI as suspected misconduct.
I’m still of the opinion that straight self-plagiarism has a rotten odor – it allows individuals to game the metrics by getting more publications from the same or less work (compared to those who only publish things once). This inevitably burnishes CVs and promotion/tenure packets, and all the other things that rely on such metrics.
I’m in total agreement with you, though there is the devil-in-the-details issue (e.g., what and how much is being recycled? In what context is the recycling taking place? With what degree of clarity is the recycling occurring?)
“benefits of nutraceuticals”
https://pubpeer.com/search?q=berberine
After a decade being far from research, Bardia Askari, found this error.
I totally understand how Dr. Askari felt why struggling to make his point. Apparently, journals and publishers hate retractions and try their best to sweep the matter under the carpet.
I have reported many instances of scientific misconduct coming in many forms such as duplicated data use (like this very RW news), plagiarizing texts, data fabrication, etc., to no avail.
Now you may question the correctness and accuracy of my misconduct reports. But I can assure you that after publishing and peer reviewing so many papers, I am not that inexperienced to issue incorrect reports.
In all cases, I provided more than enough evidence that PROVED that the data were fabricated, that the data were duplicated, that the statistical analyses were totally wrong or even irrelevant (which resulted in completely irrelevant and misleading conclusions), or that a large amount of text is copied directly from a previous article (without even citing that previous paper). So I gave them solid evidence, verifying that my accusation claims are correct, exact, and accurate.
What did the journals and their publishers do? Nothing! They tried their best to sweep the matter under the carpet. The best response I received was from a very famous journal that asked the (dubious) author to send an erratum clarifying one of my concerns (not even all of them, only 1 of them), which the author happily did by lying even more!
The editor did this despite my ample evidence PROVING that the data as well as the whole research itself were all imaginary and non-existent; in other words, there was no room for any “clarification”, to begin with. Yet the editor preferred to sweep it under the carpet.
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And more importantly, never ever did the journals refute my claims of misconduct by giving any EVIDENCE and REASON against my claims and my evidence; for example, they could simply state why my claim was wrong or why my evidence was not convincing to them. But never they explained anything. Their responses were generic, secretive, and totally useless. They only sent some polite and vague one-liners like “After investigating this matter carefully, we did not believe any further action is needed.”
And most of these problems were with very famous publishers and/or journals who claim they value scientific integrity the most. None of them were among those expensive open-access publishers or journals. All problems were with very good or at least moderately good subscription publishers and journals.
In one case, the plagiarizing article had plagiarized one of my own articles! So after contacting the journal and sending them a copy of my own article and highlighting the stolen parts, the journal didn’t care at all, stating that “the extent of copying is not that high!” (They have copied multiple FULL paragraphs of my article besides many single sentences). I threatened to sue them for deliberately ignoring my reports. The journal didn’t care again, replying something along the line that “Bring it on, if you can”! Of course, I couldn’t easily travel to their country to sue them. So I contacted their publisher (which was the publisher of both journals [the one publishing my own paper and the one plagiarizing my paper (these were 2 different journals published by the same publisher)]). The publisher didn’t care either! So I gave it up, though I should have also contacted Pubmed and Scopus and Clarivate about this. Maybe I’ll do this, right now!
In another case, I saw a paper has reused my paper’s drawings without any permission or any citation. I didn’t even bother to report this case of misconduct to the journal or its publisher! I was already frustrated enough by better publishers; I knew even good publishers would not care much to retract a plagiarizing paper, let alone a weak one.
Now, I have become numb to scientific misconduct, knowing from experience that almost no one cares (much) about this.