Retraction Watch

Reviewer accused of stealing manuscript and publishing it as his own denies he refereed it

An early-career researcher who discovered a nearly identical version of her manuscript published by the researcher who reviewed — and recommended rejecting — the work for another journal is still awaiting a resolution 10 months after reporting her concerns.

Shafaq Aftab, now a lecturer at the University of Central Punjab in Pakistan, learned of the published study last fall in an alert from ResearchGate. The paper, published in Systems Research and Behavioural Science (SRBS) in September 2024, was not only similar to research she completed during her Ph.D. coursework, it was the exact work she had submitted to another journal in late 2023, Aftab told Retraction Watch.

An email exchange she had with the editor of that journal, Information Development (IDV), confirmed the author of the published study was a reviewer of Aftab’s manuscript.

After 15 years of controversy, Science retracts ‘arsenic life’ paper

*Science* has retracted a 2010 paper describing a strain of bacteria that purportedly substituted arsenic for phosphorus, an element present in all known life.
*Science*/AAAS

Fifteen years after publishing an explosive but long-criticized paper claiming to describe a microbe that could substitute arsenic for phosphate in its chemical makeup, Science is retracting the article, citing “expanded” criteria for retraction.

The authors stand by their findings and disagree with the retraction, and contend the decision doesn’t reflect best practices for publishers.

Many scientists, including David Sanders, a biologist at Purdue University in Lafayette, Ind. who has previously argued for the paper’s retraction in posts for Retraction Watch, believe the paper’s results were simply the result of contamination of the authors’ materials. He told us he was “glad” to see the retraction.

Misconduct investigation at U.S. military university uncovers image duplication

Authors affiliated with a federal health sciences university have lost three papers this year for image duplication following an investigation by the institution. And another journal has confirmed it will retract a fourth paper by some of the same authors.

The “internal research misconduct investigation” conducted by the Uniformed Services University, or USU, in Bethesda, Md., found “several falsified or inappropriately duplicated images” and “images from previously published articles,” according to two of the retraction notices. USU, an institution focused on military medicine and part of the U.S. Department of Defense, acknowledged our multiple requests for comment about the investigation but did not provide a statement.

In January, Retraction Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act request about the investigation. The Department of Defense acknowledged our request on January 7, noting the agency has 4,552 open requests that are processed in the order in which they are received.

Microbiome company CEO who linked COVID vaccine to bacterial decline now has four retractions

A gastroenterologist and microbiome researcher who has promoted hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin as COVID treatments has lost a paper after a sleuth reported differences between the article and the registered protocol of the clinical trial it purported to describe.

The retracted article, on detecting SARS-CoV-2 in fecal samples, was published in Gut Pathogens in January 2021. It marks the fourth retraction for study coauthor Sabine Hazan.

Hazan is founder and CEO of ProgenaBiome, a laboratory in Ventura, Calif., advertising clinical trials exploring the role of the gut microbiome in conditions including autism and Alzheimer’s disease, as well as COVID. She is also CEO of Ventura Clinical Trials, which lists dozens of pharmaceutical and biotech companies among its clients.

Weekend reads: India institutes face penalties for retractions; editors resign after publisher sold; should the Tuskegee Study be retracted?

Dear RW readers, can you spare $25?

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

University dean’s attempt to correct a paper turns into a retraction
Wake Forest cancer lab blames ‘honest mistakes’ for retractions
Springer Nature to retract machine learning book after our coverage
‘Biased’ and ‘unethical’: Journal objects to Scopus delisting
Director of Cambridge toxicology institute retracts paper for potential image manipulation

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up past 500. There are more than 60,000 retractions in The Retraction Watch Database — which is now part of Crossref. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains more than 300 titles. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately — or our list of top 10 most highly cited retracted papers? What about The Retraction Watch Mass Resignations List?

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

Director of Cambridge toxicology institute retracts paper for potential image manipulation

Twelve years after sleuths flagged problematic images in a 2009 paper, the authors — including the head of a UK research institute — have retracted the article.

The paper, published in Genes & Development, has been cited 126 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science.

According to the June 1 retraction notice, the authors retracted the paper because of “anomalies in the data presented” in multiple figures. “The issues relate to potential instances of image manipulation, including undisclosed splicing, lane flipping, and lane and panel duplications in the preparation of these figures.”

‘Biased’ and ‘unethical’: Journal objects to Scopus delisting

A home economics journal delisted from Scopus last year has called the decision “biased against journals from developing countries.”

Elsevier delisted the journal Nurture, published by “Nurture Publishing Group,” from the publisher’s citation database in June 2024, after indexing it for a dozen years. In an editorial published this April, Sadie Ahmad, the editorial manager for Nurture, wrote Scopus delisted the journal for three reasons: an increase in the number of scientific articles published, papers in topics beyond the scope of the journal, and an uptick of authors from different countries.

A representative from Elsevier told us Scopus’ decision was also a result of “weak quality” of papers and “low citation metrics compared to what one would expect of a journal with such history and scope.” The journal has been publishing since 2007.

Springer Nature to retract machine learning book following Retraction Watch coverage

A screenshot from June 26 shows the book had been accessed 3,782 times.

Springer Nature is retracting a book on machine learning that had multiple references to works that do not exist, Retraction Watch has learned.

The move comes two weeks after we reported on the book’s fake references.

The link to the information page for the book, Mastering Machine Learning: From Basics to Advanced, now returns “Page not found,” and the text is no longer listed under the book series on computer systems and networks.

Wake Forest cancer lab blames ‘honest mistakes’ for retractions

A prominent cancer research lab is up to three retractions and six corrections for “highly similar” images in papers published between 2018 and 2022.

The lab is led by Kounosuke Watabe at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Watabe holds one of three Wake Forest professorships all funded by a $2.8 million donation for cancer research in 2016.

Each of the retractions and corrections came after sleuth Kevin Patrick raised concerns about the articles on PubPeer in May 2024. Patrick, who identified instances of images in Watabe lab papers being “more similar than expected,” told Retraction Watch he wasn’t confident whether the image duplication could be attributed to misconduct. “I am never sure which is worse, misconduct or a pattern of errors. Neither seem to inspire confidence in the published results,” he said.

Watabe did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

University dean’s attempt to correct a paper turns into a retraction

A dean at an Australian university sought to correct some of his papers. He received a retraction instead.

We wrote last year about Marcel Dinger, dean of science at the University of Sydney, who was a coauthor on five papers with multiple references that had been retracted. In May 2024, Alexander Magazinov, a scientific sleuth and software engineer based in Kazakhstan, had flagged the papers on PubPeer for “references of questionable reliability.” Magazinov credited the Problematic Paper Screener with helping him find them.

Dinger told us at the time he intended to work with editors to determine whether the five papers should be corrected or retracted.

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