Frontiers has issued a retraction and multiple corrections for papers in several of its journals after the publisher discovered a reviewer had been impersonated.
Alla El-Din Bekhit is listed as the editor of the retracted article, a study of the potential anti-cancer effects of asparagus extract published in Frontiers in Pharmacology in May 2023. According to the retraction notice, dated January 26, the article contained duplicated images and “concerns were raised regarding scientific validity of the article.” The notice continues:
Further, the investigation confirmed that a non-genuine email address was used to impersonate Alaa El-Din Bekhit and the real Alaa El-Din Bekhit did not take any actions on this manuscript.
The publisher also issued corrections for four papers in different journals in late January and early February, which included similar notes. The papers are a 2024 article on the global burden of diets high in processed meat, a 2022 article on factors affecting the quality of meat from lambs in Inner Mongolia, a 2022 systematic review of nanomaterial scaffolds in bone regeneration, and a 2022 review article on perovskite solar cells.
The affiliations of the researchers on all five articles are various universities and institutes in China, with no overlap.
The real Alaa El-Din Bekhit is a meat scientist and food technologist at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. He told us he co-edited a special issue on global food chemistry for Frontiers in Nutrition in 2022, but otherwise is not an editor for Frontiers and had not seen the articles. He told us in an email:
The journal contacted me some time ago last year enquiring about my involvement in these publications, and It was new news to me. I was very angry about how easily people’s identities can be misused. … I asked them to remove my association with any of these publications and make it clear that someone impersonated me. I requested to get authorities involved since this fraud.
A spokesperson for Frontiers reiterated the published statements, and elaborated on the corrections versus retraction:
Following publication, Frontiers found an email address provided for Alaa El-Din Bekhit in connection with several articles was not genuine. Investigations into each of these articles, conducted in accordance with Frontiers’ policy and after consulting with the real Alaa El-Din Bekhit, confirmed that the real Alaa El-Din Bekhit was impersonated and did not take any action on the articles concerned. Alaa El-Din Bekhit’s name was therefore removed from these articles.
For four articles, the post-publication review concluded that the articles meet the standards for publication at Frontiers. Since the impersonation did not affect the validity of the research findings, errata were issued to correct the reviewer information.
Despite stating that Bekhit’s name was removed from the articles, Frontiers had not as of March 13 removed Bekhit’s name from the HTML or PDF versions of the retracted article.
The scam of impersonating a peer reviewer or editor is hardly new. Journals have been duped by someone impersonating a guest editor. Journals have published, and retracted, articles by authors impersonating another researcher. And the researchers who get impersonated usually aren’t too happy about it.
Frontiers acknowledged impersonation as an ongoing issue, telling us:
Cases of impersonation are rare but happen across all publishers. When Frontiers encounters fake identities, including impersonation, we take swift and appropriate action and address such cases rigorously in line with our established policies and the guidelines set by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Ensuring the accuracy and reliability of published research remains a top priority for us.
Journals and publishers should use verified emails to counteract this issue, Bekhit said.
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“For four articles, the post-publication review concluded that the articles meet the standards for publication at Frontiers. Since the impersonation did not affect the validity of the research findings, errata were issued to correct the reviewer information.”
How lucky for Frontiers that the impersonator editor was ethical enough to invite legitimate reviewers, right?
WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU KEEP THESE ARTICLES UP!?!!?!?
Interesting article… on the subject of “Journals and publishers should use verified emails”, I’ve been involved in writing this: https://stm-assoc.org/new-digital-identity-framework-aims-to-strengthen-research-integrity-in-scholarly-publishing/ – would love to hear feedback, there’s a form if you’re interested.