The Scottish Medical Journal has retracted more than a dozen papers dating back to 2020 after concluding the articles were likely produced by one or more paper mills.
The articles, all by researchers in China, covered a range of topics including back pain, pancreatic cancer, hand hygiene and sepsis. Most were meta-analyses.
Here’s the blanket notice for the 13 papers, which the publisher, Sage, lists by url but not title:
After an internal investigation Sage has become aware that the submissions contain indicators of third-party involvement.
Due to concerns around author contributions to these articles, as well as concerns around the integrity of the research process, Sage and the Journal Editor retract these articles.
The authors have been informed of this decision using the email addresses provided at submission.
A spokesperson for Sage told us:
We became aware of issues with these papers because multiple submissions to this journal showed indicators of paper mill activity. As a result, we rejected these submissions and investigated further published articles.
The 13 papers show indicators of paper mill activity and together with the editor, we have decided to retract them following COPE guidelines. We have been in contact with the authors of these articles.
Correcting the scientific record is incredibly important to us. Once we become aware of any misconduct, we are dedicated to carrying out a full and fair investigation. We are supporting the journal’s Editorial team to make sure they have the proper tools and training to identify and reject suspicious submissions before publication.
When the retractions were originally posted, readers who clicked through those links to the articles themselves (such as this one) – or who landed on the article pages by other means – could be forgiven for not knowing the papers have been retracted. “View retraction” appeared in regular type after various metadata, without any other flag.
Asked by Retraction Watch last week about the formatting, the spokesperson added that “there were errors which we are working urgently to correct.” Indeed, the article titles now include “RETRACTED.”
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As the scientists may change the institutions and their academic email addresses, it is essential that publisher find the authors’ current email address and contact them through a functional email address. Then the COPE flowchart must be followed with a correct investigation and within a correct time frame.
A brief check reveals that the authors or the papermillers used free disposable email accounts (e.g. xuguangx55555@163.com or yy_lqg@163.com) rather than institutional accounts. If they choose not to answer or if the disposable accounts have been abandoned, the publisher is under no obligation to put in any effort to track them down.
Editors should automatically return any submission using authors private email address
Editors should only accept institutional email affiliations upon submission, not throwaway accounts!
Thanks retractionwatch!
That would be awkward for independent / retired researchers such as myself.
Yep. I don’t use either of my institutional addresses (for spam avoidance purposes mainly) and I’m a journal editor myself! That is not the cause of or the answer to this problem. It’s just a potential red flag like all the other potential red flags that editors need to bear in mind.
Speaking as the editor of a fairly large journal, that’s just unrealistic. Non-institutional addresses are obviously riskier, but many people use one for legitimate reasons. Sometimes that’s just for convenience and could be changed if reluctantly, but even one of my associate editor used a gmail address for journal business. That was because his university did not deliver e-mail with any sort of reliability, so not really a choice on his part but something he had to do.
I wish all publishers would come up with a policy of not accepting any submissions without first verifying the author institution’s web page and email.
Einstein did not have any affiliation on his papers in 1905 with that logic you would reject an Einstein that is not affiliated with universities or institutions. Papermills should be punished it is a plague as well as data fabrication no doubt. Perhaps we should be looking at people with unusually high h factors. We should reduce the amount of meaningless review articles that add nothing to new knowledge. And maybe we should be sending some of these guys to jail specially if they use their fake papers to obtain jobs and visas etc.
Einstein DID have an affiliation — the Swiss Patent Office. He could have used their institutional email.
Oh, wait…
Using institutional emails is not feasible all the times.
1. Many institutions in developing countries don’t even have a website or provide institutional emails.
2. People may often change affiliations, particularly those who are “testing waters”, making them unavailable when they shift an institution as the institute email may stop working.
3. People may have more than affiliation.
4. Institutional email may be spammed.
5. Many institutions do not provide POP3 access meaning you need to login to webmail often.
6. You may not even like the email ID that the institute provides (who.likes an I’d like zgyd135@aaaaaa.edu)
Even when one is moving institutions and in the 3 months notice period