Last month, we wrote about the retraction of a study in the Journal of Surgical Oncology (JSO) for duplication. But we were a bit frustrated by the lack of information in the notice. As we wrote at the time:
It would be nice to know a couple of things here. For example, when and where was the duplicated paper published? And who were the authors?
Well, we’ve heard from the journal, and have some updates. Brittany White, managing editor of the JSO, tells us, on behalf of editor-in-chief Stephen F. Sener, that:
The article entitled “Factors affecting hospital readmission rates for breast cancer patients in Western Australia” was accepted by the JSO on November 9th, 2006. It was published online on January 17th, 2007.In mid-February of that year, one of our reviewers brought to our attention that a strikingly similar article was accepted and published by the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. That article was entitled “Factors Associated with Short-term Hospital Readmission Rates for Breast Cancer Patients in Western Australia: an Observational Study,” and it was published online on January 4th, 2007.
And:
After reviewing our records and correspondence concerning this retraction, we have decided to update the current retraction with additional detail.
White goes on:
We regret that the original retraction omitted these details, and we hope this explanation and upcoming correction will help resolve the confusion. We appreciate your interest in the matter and hope that you will contact our Editorial Office should you have further questions.
Here’s the new notice:
Retraction “Factors Affecting Hospital Readmission Rates for Breast Cancer Patients in Western Australia,” Michael A. Martin, Ramona Meyricke, Terry O’Neill, and Steven Roberts
The above article, published online on January 17, 2007, in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com), has been retracted by agreement between the authors, the journal Editor in Chief, Stephen Sener, and Wiley Periodicals, Inc. The retraction has been agreed due to a substantially similar article having been published elsewhere: Lai, J.K., Martin, M.A., Meyricke, R., O’Neill, T., and Roberts, S. (2007) Factors Associated with Short-term Hospital Readmission Rates for Breast Cancer Patients in Western Australia: an Observational Study. Journal of the American College of Surgeons, 204, 193-200.
Whether this was in direct response to our inquiry is unclear, but we’re certainly pleased that the journal has made these changes.
It would be interesting to know what the authors have to say. From my experience, Australia takes cases of ethical publishing violations quite seriously, so it would also be interesting to know what happened to these authors following the retraction. This aspect is not that developed on RW and could do with some more input from bloggers, i.e., following-up on all authors whose papers have been retracted to see how their careers have evolved since their papers were retracted. For example, who has lost their job, who has faced criminal prosecution, who has had to forfeit salaries or return grant money, who has moved on, and to where? These and other similar questions will now start to become pertinent as retractions now become a standard part of the now permanently deformed publishing landscape. I noticed one function (right-hand column of the RW blog) that allows for the selection of authors by name, so this could be a useful start for an interesting, and unique, study.