Following a “thorough investigation,” the Journal of Conservative Dentistry (JCD) has retracted a paper after concluding that the first author stole the text from another paper when peer reviewing it for a different journal.
The JCD decided that the 2013 paper about white spot lesions and inhibiting the growth of the bacteria Streptococcus mutans in the mouth is a “verbatim copy” of a paper that was rejected by the International Journal of Paediatric Dentistry in 2012 but published by The Journal of Clinical Pediatric Dentistry in 2014.
The first author denied the charges, saying she had finished the paper before reviewing the other, which she suggested rejecting.
Let’s take a look at the retraction note, which tells us more about the journal’s investigation:
The Journal of Conservative Dentistry has decided to retract the article titled, “Role of casein phosphopeptide amorphous calcium phosphate in remineralization of white spot lesions and inhibition of Streptococcus mutans?” authored by Vashisht R, Indira R, Ramachandran S, Kumar A, and Srinivasan MR, published in pages 342-346, issue 4, vol. 16 of the Journal of Conservative Dentistry. [1]Based on the complaint from the editorial office of International Journal of Pediatric Dentistry, it was found that the article is a verbatim copy of an article titled, “Does casein phosphopeptide amorphous calcium phosphate provide remineralization on white spot lesions and inhibition of Streptococcus mutans?” authored by Aykut-Yetkiner A, Kara N, Ateώ M, Ersin N, and Ertuπrul F and published in pages 302-306, issue 4, vol. 38 of Journal of Clinical Pediatric Dentistry.[2]
After a thorough investigation, it is evident that the first author (Dr Ruchi Vashisht) of the concerned article, [1] was a reviewer of an article [2]by Aykut-Yetkiner et al. that was initially submitted to Int J Paed Dent. This article [2] was rejected by the reviewer(s) in 2012. Dr Ruchi Vashisht later submitted this same article to J Conserv Dent along with a set of coauthors. This article was peer reviewed and was published in our journal in 2013. [1] The original authors (Aykut-Yetkiner et al.) had submitted their manuscript to another journal and got it published in 2014. [2]
The article [1] published in J Conserv Dent has breached the rules of research and publication ethics and constitutes gross research misconduct. The coauthors of this article [1] claim innocence and to be unaware of this. The first author is neither communicating to the journals concerned nor to the coauthors. Therefore, on grounds of research misconduct the article [1] in concern is being retracted.
The retracted paper, “Role of casein phosphopeptide amorphous calcium phosphate in remineralization of white spot lesions and inhibition of Streptococcus mutans?,” has so far been cited twice, according to Thomson Reuters Web of Science. Its twin paper, “Does casein phosphopeptid amorphous calcium phosphate provide remineralization on white spot lesions and inhibition of Streptococcus mutans?,” has not yet been cited.
First author Ruchi Vashisht, from the department of conservative dentistry and orthodontics at the National Dental College in Dera Bassi, Punjab, India, told us she denies the allegations:
I was told that I had copied text but my study was long back finished and the article I reviewed I rejected it…and my husband had expired so I couldn’t reply to mails and now I see this blame on me…
Although reviewers stealing text for their own papers is rare, we know of at least two other instances of this — one of which we’ve reported recently.
We’ve reached out to Velayutham Gopikrishna, the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Conservative Dentistry based at the M. G. R. University in Chennai, India, and Arzu Aykut-Yetkiner, the first author of the twin paper from the University of Ege in Izmir, Turkey. We’ll update the post with anything else we learn.
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Whoever stole text, it’s amazing how some people don’t think that scientists read in their field, and would come across the theft.
Actually, the hapless would-be academician Alsabti pirated 5 papers and 55 more were suspicious. He simply stole papers submitted for editorial review to members of the multiple departments that he guested. See “Would-Be Academician Pirates Papers”, Science 27 Jun 1980: Vol. 208, Issue 4451, pp. 1438-1440, DOI: 10.1126/science.208.4451.1438.
I also think a broader question is when a peer-reviewer or an editor incorporates a novel concept from a manuscript and uses it in their own research program. They would have the advantage of knowing about the work before anyone else. It would be difficult to track.