A professor of interventional radiology in France pointed the finger at an alleged ghostwriter after he was caught plagiarizing large portions of text in a review article, Retraction Watch has learned.
“After careful checking, I noticed that I am not the author of this paper despite my first authorship since it has been written by our previous medical writter [sic],” Romaric Loffroy of CHU Dijon Bourgogne wrote in an email seen by Retraction Watch.
Loffroy also toned down the offense, saying he wouldn’t care if others had plagiarized his work.
The review, “Current role of multiparametric magnetic resonance imaging for prostate cancer,” was published in October 2015 in Quantitative Imaging in Medicine and Surgery and has been cited 28 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science. Nowhere does it mention the involvement of a medical writer.
The paper borrows heavily from two other reviews published in 2015. Its entire introduction was lifted verbatim from an article in the Indian Journal of Urology, while its conclusions were copied from a paper in the Korean Journal of Urology.
Audrey Licandro, research director at CHU Dijon Bourgogne, told Retraction Watch the institution was “currently conducting an internal investigation of this matter and will get back to you as soon as possible.”
After discovering the plagiarism, the authors of the paper in the Korean Journal of Urology contacted Loffroy. They did not hear back. Then a colleague, Henry Woo of the Australian National University, took it upon himself to try as well.
“I thought that I would see if I would have any more success,” Woo told us. On October 16, he emailed Loffroy and his coauthors, as well as the journal’s editor-in-chief, Yi-Xiang Wang of The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
“Significant amounts of text from your paper have in fact been copied word for word from two manuscripts. Whether intentional or not, it constitutes serious academic misconduct,” Woo wrote in his email. He added that he found it “disturbing” the journal had not spotted the plagiarism and recommended Loffroy request a retraction.
In a reply sent that same day, Loffroy downplayed Woo’s concerns. Besides claiming he had not written the article, he pointed out that:
The paper you talk about is a review paper published more than 8 years ago and not an original article, not involving any relevant or original data, which is no more excusable but much less harmful in terms of scientific impact, since most journal review articles are just repetitions. You probably know that better than me. Third, the article certainly went through the journal’s plagiarism software which did not identify any significant word duplication at that time and which is not my responsability [sic]. In addition to that, it seems that word duplication here represents roughly less than 8% of the paper, which is largely within the limits of what is acceptable, although I am not an expert on that topic.
He added:
Last but not least, I am very impressed by the time it takes for certain people to check for plagiarism. I would like to have that much time to check plagiarism of my own articles but my schedule unfortunately doesn’t allow it, and I must admit that I really don’t care. My interest is elsewhere. In conclusion, I consider that it is not my role to initiate any action and let the Editor decide but I remain available to the competent authorities for additional information if needed, in complete transparency.
Loffroy, who did not answer emails or phone calls asking for comment, has been a deputy editor of Quantitative Imaging in Medicine and Surgery since 2017, according to his LinkedIn profile. The extent of his ties to the journal, if any, prior to that is unclear.
Quantitative Imaging in Medicine and Surgery is published by AME Publishing Company. It was one of many “potentially predatory” titles on the now-defunct Beall’s List, which many find controversial. Wang, the journal’s editor-in-chief, did not respond to requests for comment.
In a reply to Loffroy, Woo pointed out that the offensive review had been accepted “an almost unbelievable 14 days” after submission. He added:
You cannot absolve your academic misconduct by blaming an undisclosed ghost medical writer. The failure to declare involvement by a ghost writer in itself represents academic misconduct and this could be even worse had you not disclosed this to your co-authors. It would be interesting if your co-authors were to comment on this and whether they would support you or distance themselves from the academic misconduct associated with this paper.
Woo also pointed out:
The failure of the journal software system to detect your plagiarism does not absolve you of having undertaken plagiarism. When complete sections, and which in your case includes the abstract, introduction and conclusions having entire word for word duplication from two other manuscripts, the percentage of duplication is irrelevant. … My personal belief is that this article did not go through a plagiarism check and particularly given the track record of AME publications on the former Beall List of predatory journals.
The reason that I think it appropriate to check your other submissions to journals that were on the Beall List is that blatant plagiarism is not usually an isolated event. Past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior.
Like Retraction Watch? You can make a tax-deductible contribution 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].
I’m fascinated by the recent trend of “authors” blaming ghost writers for plagiarism and other errors. It’s rightly considered academic misconduct to leave even a minor contributor off the author list. Omitting a dedicated “medical writer” responsible for essentially the whole text just means you plagiarized the whole thing.
My background in writing is several years in academia (one author, non-STEM), public writing for STEM academia, and non-academic technical communication. So this trend fascinates me too – and annoys me with the obvious sham it is. Academics should be called out for such a response.
It seems more and more academics are hiring non-expert writers to make their papers read better. This is a standard in the technical, pharma, and medical industry. Also standard in those other industries is such non-expert technical/medical writers are not listed as authors (lots of work I’ve done doesn’t have my name on it, no matter how much I’ve written in it).
BUT: it is also a standard in those industries that the non-expert writer is responsible for best writing practices (presentation of information, language simplification and standards, adapting material to the intended audience, etc). The expert (often called an SME) provides the source material they work on. The understanding: one person is an expert on the thing being written about; the other on how to write it.
It is understood that the accuracy and sourcing of what is said is the expert SME’s responsibility; the clarity is the non-expert’s. The final draft is only signed off when the expert says so, because accuracy is the priority. (Obviously.)
I think such respondents exploit an ignorance in academia of best practices in working on papers with non-expert co-authors. The general academic audience knows little about standard documentation practice in the technical, pharma, and medical industries.
The ‘blame it on the med/tech/ghost-writer’ would not fly at all in industry. All source material should be from the expert. If the expert lets the tech writer come up with new expert material, they are still responsible for it, eg, by not providing it they don’t do their job; by not checking it afterwards, they don’t do their job. If the source is plagiarised, even IF the tech writer did it, this is still the expert’s responsibility.
(I’ve had that btw, it doesn’t stop experts trying to plagiarise. Nicely, because I think of my academic background, I recognised the plagiarism more easily and could call the experts on it.
As a second aside, they didn’t think it was a problem. Anyway-)
Typos, though, or a missing Oxford comma, or passive voice, or instructions with the steps’ goals unspecified – absolutely, blame the tech writer.
That all makes sense, it’s difficult to see how it could be otherwise, which makes “it was the ghost writer” up there with “the dog ate my homework” as a totally unacceptable excuse.
The plagiarism was pointed out in 2017, so Loffroy’s excuse that it was a long time ago doesn’t really work.
https://pubpeer.com/publications/67A280070F7352207DBE6FA95BBB37
most journal review articles are just repetitions
“My paper was an unimportant space-filler that just pads out my CV, so the source of the text doesn’t matter”.
That PubPeer entry unfortunately did not tag the author, so he can still act as if he didn’t know until very recently.
Whether he knew or didn’t know does not change the fact that his word for word copying without attribution is a problem.
Don’t get me wrong, the facts about the plagiarism indeed do not change (and he makes it worse by blaming a ghostwriter) – he’s just got some plausible deniability regarding the PubPeer entry.
“After careful checking, I noticed that I am not the author of this paper despite my first authorship since it has been written by our previous medical writer”.
At that point, the big question is whether accepting a gift authorship offered by a ghost author should be considered as a worse offense compared to plagiarizing…
I’d say it is still plagiarism, just double plagiarism: he is taking credit for something someone else wrote, who just happened to have plagiarized him/herself.
I think that the co-authors of this paper should also be held to account. If they have just accepted gifting of authorship, they are no better. But certainly the lead author must step down from his position at his university or be dismissed. This is truly unethical behaviour
See another example plagiarism by french doctors on pubpeer : https://pubpeer.com/publications/E22C6D04F1E019565F537E3DC5A315
Love the disdain for those who spotted the plagiarism, seeing that Loffroy has _so_ much more important things to do with his time. 😉
Any one of these excuses would be startling in itself, but to offer *all* of them suggests someone who really needs to learn the First Law of Holes (“when you realize you’re in a hole, stop digging.”)