Journal run by new AMA president-elect caught in special issue scam

A med-tech journal whose editor-in-chief is the president-in-waiting of the American Medical Association has retracted six papers for compromised peer review and related problems.  

The Journal of Medical Systems, led by Jesse Ehrenfeld – an anesthesiologist in Wisconsin who this week became president-elect of the AMA –  said the articles were part of a special issue that ran in 2018 titled “Advancements in Internet of Medical Things for Healthcare System.”

Here’s the retraction notice for “LSTM Model for Prediction of Heart Failure in Big Data”:

The Editor-in-Chief and the publisher have retracted this article. The article was submitted to be part of a guest-edited issue. An investigation by the publisher found a number of articles, including this one, with a number of concerns, including but not limited to compromised editorial handling and peer review process, inappropriate or irrelevant references or not being in scope of the journal or guest-edited issue. Based on the investigation’s findings the Editor-in-Chief therefore no longer has confidence in the results and conclusions of this article.

Author Shobana Devi disagrees with this retraction. Author G. Maragatham has not responded to correspondence regarding this retraction.

The article has been cited 50 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science.

For more on how special issue scams have battered major publishers including Springer Nature — which publishes the Journal of Medical Systems — see our previous posts here, here, and here.

The other papers are: 

• A Robust Decision Support System for Wireless Healthcare Based on Hybrid Prediction Algorithm (four cites)
• Medical Image Enhancement by a Bilateral Filter Using Optimization Technique (10 cites)
• Video Surveillance System Against Anti-terrorism by Using Adaptive Linear Activity Classification (ALAC) Technique (five cites) and
• Internet of Things for Knowledge Administrations By Wearable Gadgets (two cites).

The sixth article, Maintaining Security and Privacy in Health Care System Using Learning Based Deep-Q-networks, has been cited 111 times, per Clarivate, earning it the status of a highly cited paper. 

Ehrenfeld has not responded to multiple requests for comment on the retractions.

Update, 6/20/22, 1800 UTC: We’ve learned that Ehrenfeld forwarded our requests for comment to the Springer Nature press office, which, due to an ‘administrative error’ did not respond to us.

Update, 6/22/22, 1800 UTC: A Springer Nature spokesperson sent this statement:

Springer Nature and Dr Ehrenfeld were extremely concerned to find that six papers in the journal were identified as part of Springer Nature’s ongoing investigations into cases in which the editorial processes had been inappropriately manipulated in guest edited issues. Dr Ehrenfeld and Springer Nature hold the Journal of Medical Systems to a high editorial standard and are absolutely dedicated to preserving the integrity to this journal.  All guest edited issues at the journal were immediately paused and an extensive and rigorous vetting process has been established for future guest edited issues. 

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