A journal formerly published by Hindawi has yet to publish any sort of notice on a paper sleuths reported for containing duplicated images 1.5 years ago.
According to Kevin Patrick, the sleuth who contacted the publisher in mid-2023, the episode “might be a useful case study” of the issues facing Wiley, which acquired Hindawi in 2021 and stopped using the brand name earlier this year after retracting thousands of papers and closing journals overrun by paper mills.
The article, “Resveratrol Derivative, Trans-3, 5, 4 ′-Trimethoxystilbene Sensitizes Osteosarcoma Cells to Apoptosis via ROS-Induced Caspases Activation,” appeared in Oxidative Medicine and Cellular Longevity in 2021. Clarivate removed the journal from its Web of Science index in March 2023 for failing to meet quality criteria.
In April 2023, Elisabeth Bik left a comment on PubPeer, noting “several figures in this paper look identical to figures in a 2019 paper by some of the same authors,” which had been retracted. “I could not find wording about e.g. a republication of part of that study, and the 2019 paper is not included in the references,” she wrote.
Ming Hong, the 2021 paper’s last author, with an affiliation listed at Guangzhou University & Zhongshan People’s Hospital Joint Biomedical Institute, in China, responded soon after. Hong said a student had used the data and published the manuscript in the other journal, and the team had retracted the paper when they found out.
When Bik asked how Hong’s name could have been on the earlier paper without Hong knowing about it, Hong replied:
I have not received any notice when the paper on cells was submitted. When I found it is [sic] published, I immediately retracted the paper. I am so sorry for this paper on cells. We will pay much more attention on [sic] these things.
At that point, Patrick added a comment about images in the paper “seemingly derived from a paper published by different authors in Scientific Reports where they are described differently.” Hong did not respond to that concern.
Patrick sent the PubPeer thread to Wiley’s research integrity email inbox on April 27, 2023. A few days later, a research integrity speciality for Hindawi replied:
Thank you for bringing these concerns to our attention. Please be assured that they will be fully investigated.
I will be in contact with you on the outcome of these investigations, or should further action be required.
On Oct. 31, 2024, Patrick asked for update on the case. He received the following email in reply:
Due to a high volume of emails, the Research Integrity team is unfortunately experiencing slightly longer than usual response times. Please be assured that these concerns are being investigated and we will be in contact with you as soon as we have a further update.
Thank you again for your patience and understanding.
In response to our inquiry, a Wiley spokesperson said the publisher “expect[s] the case in question to be resolved soon.”
“Wiley takes research integrity very seriously,” the spokesperson said. “The complexity and scale of research integrity concerns have increased vastly across publishers over the last few years, and Wiley has responded by both expanding the number of in-house research integrity experts and investing in new technological tools.”
Although Wiley “has been aware of multiple serious problems in this paper” for more than 18 months, Patrick said, the publisher has not marked it with an expression of concern or any other indication of the ongoing investigation.
“That they do not act with a sense of urgency on these matters, and don’t seem to care that their readers might be depending upon a flawed paper, bothers me,” Patrick said.
He continued:
I also do not have any sympathy for the ‘high volume of emails’ leading to ‘slightly longer than usual response times.’ If a publisher is spitting out papers at a rate so fast that they cannot fix problems in papers as they are brought to their attention – by volunteers – they have admitted that they don’t care about the content in their publications or their readers.
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].