The publisher Frontiers has retracted at least a dozen papers in the last month, after announcing an “extensive internal investigation” into “potentially falsified research.”
Here’s an example of a notice, this one from Frontiers in Endocrinology for “Overexpression of microRNA-216a-3p Accelerates the Inflammatory Response in Cardiomyocytes in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus by Targeting IFN-α2,” which was originally published in November 2020:
The journal and Chief Editors retract the 27 November 2020 article cited above.
Following publication, concerns were raised regarding the validity of the data in the article. The authors failed to provide the raw data or a satisfactory explanation during the investigation, which was conducted in accordance with Frontiers’ policies. Given the concerns, and the lack of raw data, the editors no longer have confidence in the findings presented in the article.
This retraction was approved by the Chief Editors of Frontiers in Endocrinology and the Chief Executive Editor of Frontiers. The authors agreed with this retraction.
Ten other articles have similar retraction notices, mostly in Frontiers in Oncology and one in Frontiers in Physiology, all by authors in China.
Another retraction, of a Frontiers in Pharmacology paper by authors in India, has slightly different language:
Following publication, concerns were raised regarding the integrity of the methodology used in the study. The authors failed to provide a satisfactory explanation during the investigation, which was conducted in accordance with Frontiers’ policies.
This retraction was approved by the Chief Editors of Frontiers in Pharmacology and the Chief Executive Editor of Frontiers. The authors did agree to this retraction.
In a December 13 announcement, the publisher said:
A wave of systematically falsified research manuscripts, commonly referred to as ‘paper mill’ papers, threatens to harm the integrity of today’s scientific literature and is of significant concern to all of us.
The announcement and the retraction notices stop short of referring to the articles as paper mill products, although the titles of the papers are similar to those we’ve seen in such schemes. The announcement continues:
As soon as the issue was brought to our attention, we launched an extensive internal investigation. At Frontiers, we continue to follow our strict research integrity processes. If a suspicious article is identified, clarification from authors is sought and raw data investigated. If a satisfactory outcome is not achieved, a retraction will follow.
A Frontiers staffer told us in December that they “expect many more retractions to come next year.”
The publisher is not alone in issuing mass retractions recently.
Like Retraction Watch? You can make a one-time tax-deductible contribution by PayPal or by Square, or a monthly tax-deductible donation by Paypal to support our work, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, add us to your RSS reader, or subscribe to our daily digest. If you find a retraction that’s not in our database, you can let us know here. For comments or feedback, email us at [email protected].
At least two of them had been criticised in Pubpeer threads:
Liu et al (2020a)
Che et al (2020)
Many of the others show the stylised Western Blots and other hallmarks of the same papermill. See, e.g., Liu et al (2020).
“Frontiers” is a very suspect publisher in my mind meriting a “presumption against” rating. Which is rebuttable. At least temporarily.