Retraction Watch

Weekend reads: Retraction Watch’s 15th birthday; ‘the superstar scientist’ who faked data; sleuths vs. integrity officers on handling misconduct

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

Frontiers to retract 122 articles linked to “unethical” network, says there are thousands more
27-year-old Nature paper earns expression of concern
Noticed: Sleuths are starting to get credit for retractions
AI research journal with sham board, metrics holds researcher’s paper hostage
Happy 15th anniversary, Retraction Watch

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up past 500.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):

Happy 15th anniversary, Retraction Watch

Once upon a time, a long time ago, two science journalists had an idea for a blog about retractions. And on Aug. 3, 2010, Retraction Watch launched, detailing in the first post why retractions matter.

And now, 15 years and 6,700 posts later, that work seems more important than ever.

We are gratified every day to see Retraction Watch driving the conversation on integrity in scientific research. Our work has provided the foundation for stories on mass resignations at journals, how fake phrases end up in the literature, the retraction of a paper claiming evidence for an ancient comet with Biblical ties. We’ve gotten shoutouts in Science, which included links to our stories as examples for scientists of how to respond constructively to critiques of their work, and in Nature, which urged universities to examine their own retraction data.

AI research journal with sham board, metrics holds researcher’s paper hostage

A journal purporting to be “cited by esteemed scholars and scientists all around the world” claims a false impact factor and attempts to charge authors a fee for withdrawing articles, Retraction Watch has learned. And the editor in chief publicly disavows any relationship with the title on his website.

The International Journal of Swarm Intelligence and Evolutionary Computation, or IJSIEC, claims to publish research on robotics, AI, “bacterial forging [sic],” bioinformatics and computing, among other topics.

A Retraction Watch reader brought the journal to our attention earlier this month. The researcher had submitted a paper to the journal but then noticed some red flags. Among them: One of the two listed editors-in-chief, Qiangfu Zhao, states on his website, “some journals are using my name to attract academic papers. I have no relation with these journals.” Zhao, a professor at the University of Aizu in Aizuwakamatsu, Japan, confirmed to us he has “no relation with this journal.”

Noticed: Sleuths are starting to get credit for retractions

Pseudonymous sleuth Claire Francis has flagged thousands of papers over the years, so they rarely see something new. But an email from Frontiers about an upcoming retraction on a paper Francis originally flagged offered just that: The option to be acknowledged in the retraction notice.

After years of publishers not routinely – or even often – naming sleuths despite many asking for their often unpaid and risky work to be acknowledged, the trend of acknowledging who identified issues in papers may be gaining momentum. Frontiers is one of several publishers developing such policies, and the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) plans to release new guidelines in August that would recommend this practice.

Frontiers began offering acknowledgements last year, a spokesperson for the company told Retraction Watch. “Once investigations are complete, the third party is informed of the outcome and, if a retraction is to be published, offered the option to be recognized in the notice with a standardized statement,” they said.

27-year-old Nature paper earns expression of concern

Figure 1a in a 1998 paper was first flagged on PubPeer in 2016 for image irregularities.

Nature has issued an editorial expression of concern on a paper published 27 years ago — and nearly nine years after learning of an “irregularity” in a figure.

According to the June 18 statement, a figure in the 1998 paper showed duplicated control lanes, with one of them flipped.

Pseudonymous sleuth Claire Francis flagged the issue on PubPeer in 2016, and reported the problem to the journal at the same time, Francis told Retraction Watch.

Frontiers to retract 122 articles, links thousands in other publishers’ journals to “unethical” network

The publisher Frontiers has begun retracting a batch of 122 articles across five journals after an investigation found a network of authors and editors engaged in “unethical actions” such as manipulating citations and reviewing papers without disclosing conflicts of interest.

The publisher’s research integrity team has identified more than 4,000 articles linked to the network in journals owned by seven other companies, according to a company statement. The team said it is willing to share details and the methodology of their investigation with other publishers upon request. The company is a member of the STM Hub, a platform publishers use to share such information.

Weekend reads: Science retracts ‘arsenic life’ paper; another journal issue on Palestine cancelled; JAMA, NEJM editors decry political interference

Dear RW readers, can you spare $25?

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

Microbiome company CEO who linked COVID vaccine to bacterial decline now has four retractions
Misconduct investigation at U.S. military university uncovers image duplication
After 15 years of controversy, Science retracts ‘arsenic life’ paper. More coverage from Science, Nature, The New York Times, Scientific American, and The Hindu.
Reviewer accused of stealing manuscript and publishing it as his own denies he refereed it
Panel upholds results of contested U Toronto mammography study

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

Panel upholds results of contested U Toronto mammography study

The University of Toronto has quietly published the results of an inquiry into the Canadian National Breast Screening Study that began in 2022 and, it seems, concluded in March 2024.

The panel, tasked with evaluating new allegations about the trial’s randomization, found the evidence it reviewed did not affect the results of the trials, which called into question the value of mammography in women ages 40-59.

Imaging scientist Martin Yaffe of the University of Toronto has long been a critic of the CNBSS, a pair of randomized clinical trials of mammography conducted in the 1980s. In April, we published a guest post in which Yaffe detailed the history of the trial and his critiques of it, as well as new evidence that clinical staff may have unwittingly influenced randomization. He reported this to the Canadian Cancer Society in 2021, and to the university.

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.

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