A prominent physician-scientist in South Korea may soon be facing his fourth retraction. Last month, Hui-Nam Pak of Yonsei University was found guilty of duplicate publication, a form of academic misconduct, according to a report from the school’s committee on research integrity Retraction Watch has obtained.
Pak, a cardiologist, has had dozens of papers flagged on PubPeer. As we reported in February, journals pulled two of his papers the previous month after a whistleblower pointed out problems with the articles. One was retracted for “a number of issues related to scientific misconduct,” while the other was a duplicate publication. A third paper by Pak was retracted years earlier after mistakenly being published twice by the same journal.
Our February story triggered a flood of comments, many of them malicious. Some likened whistleblowing to “academic vandalism.” Others asserted that “whistleblowers deserve strong legal penalties” and that “immoral whistleblowers” seemed bent on ruining Pak’s “outstanding career.” Many comments were rejected for not adhering to our commenting policies, in particular making unsubstantiated claims.
The September 12 report from Yonsei University (in Korean) explains that an “informant” reported two of Pak’s papers to the school’s Research Ethics Integrity Committee on March 7.
“Impaired mobilization of bone marrow derived CD34 positive mononuclear cells is related to the recurrence of atrial fibrillation after radiofrequency catheter ablation” was published online in 2011 in the International Journal of Cardiology. According to a machine translation of Yonsei’s report, the article overlaps significantly with the paper “Non-ischaemic titrated cardiac injury caused by radiofrequency catheter ablation of atrial fibrillation mobilizes CD34-positive mononuclear cells by non-stromal cell-derived factor-1α mechanism,” published in 2009 in EP Europace.
The latter paper “is listed in the references of paper No. 1,” the report states, “but the research subjects of the two papers are the same, and the research results of the comparative paper are part of the research results of paper No. 1 … so it is a substantially similar work. Nevertheless, the [second paper] was recognized as a separate research achievement … so it was an unfair duplicate publication.”
We emailed the editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Cardiology and Elsevier, its publisher, but did not immediately hear back.
The second paper reported to Yonsei University, “eNOS3 Genetic Polymorphism Is Related to Post-Ablation Early Recurrence of Atrial Fibrillation,” was the one retracted in January due to scientific misconduct.
The informant claimed Patrick T. Ellinor, a professor at Harvard Medical School, had been listed as a coauthor of that paper “even though he did not contribute to the research.”
However, the committee found: “According to the explanation of the person under investigation, Professor Patrick T. Ellinor contributed to the research by presenting the research methodology and conducting a review of the research results, so it is difficult to say that the person under investigation committed research misconduct equivalent to unfair author indication.”
Neither Pak nor Ellinor responded to requests for comments.
The informant also alleged Pak might have doctored the data in the article. But those concerns “appear to be about simple errors in the research and scientific validity rather than issues of ethics, so it is difficult to say that the person under investigation committed research misconduct equivalent to forgery and falsification,” the report states.
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Prof. Hui-Nam Pak, MD, PhD is an expert in High Energy Physics.
https://pubpeer.com/publications/5B3EFEBF71C6CBE34D10DDA644BC10
Patrick Ellinor is the Director of the Precision Cardiology Laboratory at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. It is truly unfortunate that such a world-renowned scholar in cardiovascular genetics was involved in this research misconduct case.
The journal had already retracted the paper owing to “a number of issues related to scientific misconduct,” but it is very interesting that the Yonsei University Research Committee stated that there were no ethical issues with this retracted paper. As seems to be the case in many cases, universities usually make decisions to protect fraudulent professors.
Regardless of whether there were ethical issues or not, the fact that there were at least four papers that were on the verge of being retracted suggests that he is a less-than-delicate and scientifically careless PI.
I’ve observed that some “less-than-delicate and scientifically careless PI” (or can say cheater PI) try to include big guys with good names to their papers as a security shield and mask. When people see a big name in the list of authors, it is less likely to be suspicious of any wrongdoing. In this way, many fabricated data and misconduct are never discovered, are left behind a mask forever.
Unfortunetely, some retired famous academics are not careful about these kinds of abuse of their names and prestige, so easily accept offer of collaboration (?) and get involved in scandalous research works. They are target of abuse and expected to disclose details of their involvement to avoid it.
This is a dirty immoral tactic that cheaters follow.
“Professor Patrick T. Ellinor contributed to the research by presenting the research methodology and conducting a review of the research results”
Unfortunately, Ellinor should be responsible for this incident as well.
As stated by the university, the retracted paper has no ethical issue. Prof. Hui-Nam Pak and Prof. Patrick Ellinor are innocent. I hope people will not blame such innocent prominent scholars.
Oh, duplicate publications and plagiarism are also innocent, right?
This article mentions the vapid responses like this in the comments section of the previous story.
With this comment, you have contributed nothing in the way of facts, only an opinion.
On what basis do you (and others like you) make these assertions of innocence? If you have evidence that the concerns are invalid, you should share that evidence. Without evidence, these opinions are of little import, and are embarrassing to read.
Cheshire:
The university stated that those concerns “appear to be about simple errors in the research and scientific validity rather than issues of ethics.” Although not included in this article, most of Professor Pak’s other papers were also found to have no scientific misconduct problems. The media’s exaggeration of simple mistakes made by academic colleagues is a huge problem. Don’t many people need to overlook the simple mistakes of their academic colleagues and encourage them?
seranee: Your point-by-point response is impressive. Here are Hui-Nam Pak’s “simple mistakes” and “simple errors.”
– https://pubpeer.com/publications/38733C41F48DA61A5C33D455D5C33A
– https://pubpeer.com/publications/84DB8965E87DECBF05682EB8A5A5F0
– https://pubpeer.com/publications/28550DDA06A74EF90C14099CDAC67C
Prof. Hui-Nam Pak is Vice President of the Asia Pacific Heart Rhythm Society (APHRS) and Korean Heart Rhythm Society (KHRS), and won the Yuhan Medical Award. Undoubtedly, Prof. Hui-Nam Pak is a leading cardiac electrophysiologist and physician-scientist in Korea.
… And so he certainly needs to be held to the highest standard. You make a good point.
According to his interview this month, he’ll serve as President of APHRS from January next year.
http://www.docdocdoc.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=3010594
Google translate:
Q. I heard that you will be serving as the president of APHRS (Asia Pacific Heart Rhythm Society) from January next year. The activity plan is?
-> In collaboration with the European Society of Cardiology, we are planning activities to raise awareness of arrhythmia among the general public, such as ‘Pulse Day’ as an international campaign. Patients are asked to check their own pulse, and if an abnormality is detected, atrial fibrillation can be diagnosed through an electrocardiogram. These days, many people have wearable devices such as smartwatches, and there are various pulse measurement tools, but they inevitably cost money. However, since measuring one’s own pulse is a method that anyone can do, we plan to encourage grandchildren to measure their grandfather’s or grandmother’s pulse on a specific day, or to conduct an electrocardiogram if abnormalities are detected after measurement.
Additionally, there are significant differences in medical systems, medical resources, and medical personnel among Asia-Pacific countries. Therefore, we plan to strengthen training and support programs for medical staff in underdeveloped countries. There is an ongoing cross-country matching program at the Asia-Pacific Arrhythmia Society, and Korea is connected to countries such as Cambodia and Mongolia. We are helping these countries by building hospitals and donating old equipment, and are also working to train medical staff. I feel proud that Korea is now in a position to educate and support medical professionals from other countries.
“We emailed the editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Cardiology and Elsevier, its publisher, but did not immediately hear back.”
Editor-in-Chief, Paolo G. Camici (https://research.hsr.it/en/clinical-research/cardiovascular-research-center/paolo-camici.html) received criticism on PubPeer.
https://pubpeer.com/publications/2AA995082B4A2E2F5B47482CE608AC
Only a few result sentences overlap. In my very personal opinion, this cannot be considered plagiarism because very small portions overlap.
International Journal of Cardiology vs. EP Europace
https://pubpeer.com/publications/38733C41F48DA61A5C33D455D5C33A
As you pointed out, 34% similarity is a very “small portion.” Looks like some of the statistical results and descriptions are identical. In addition to plagiarism, we call it “data reuse.”