Adam Marcus

Going cold turkey: Infectious disease-poultry researcher up to 14 retractions

Nine strikes in a row in bowling is called a “golden turkey.” So what do you call 10 papers on poultry pulled at once for plagiarism?

We first wrote about Sajid Umar in July 2018, when he’d lost a 2016 article in Scientifica for plagiarism and other sins, and then again earlier this summer when he notched two more retractions from Poultry Science for “grave mistakes.”

Now, the World’s Poultry Science Journal, a Taylor & Francis title, has pulled 10 more of Umar’s articles — bringing his total to 14, by our count. According to the retraction notice for the 2017 paper “Mycoplasmosis in poultry: update on diagnosis and preventive measures”:

Researcher republishes paper retracted for fake authorship — with a different co-author

A researcher in Bangladesh who fabricated a list of co-authors — and possibly her data, too — in a paper on dengue fever that was recently retracted has published the same article in a different journal.

In 2019, Farzana Ahmed was a pediatric intensivist at United Hospital Ltd, in Dhaka, when she published a study in the Journal of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University. Titled “Diagnostic value of ferritin for the severity of dengue infection in children,” the article described a study of:

Wait, how did my name end up on that paper?

There’s an “us” in lupus, but no “we” — at least in the case of a 2020 paper whose list of authors was a fabrication.

Published in the journal Lupus, the article, “Antibodies to cellular prion protein and its cognate ligand stress-inducible protein 1 in systemic lupus erythematosus,” was written by a group led by Jozélio F Carvalho, a rheumatologist at the University of São Paulo. Or rather, by Carvalho himself.

According to the notice:

University of Kentucky demotes cancer researcher following finding of misconduct by scientist in his lab

A misconduct scandal at the University of Kentucky has led to the demotion of a senior cancer researcher for his lack of oversight of a now-former scientist who fabricated data in at least four papers and two grant applications.

According to the university, the inquiry began in April 2019, after the institution received complaints about suspect figures in six papers published by UK researchers. The lead on the articles was John D’Orazio, a clinician and researcher with appointments at the Markey Cancer Center and UK Healthcare.

In November 2019, UK investigators turned their attention to Stuart Jarrett, a co-author on all six papers who had joined D’Orazio’s lab in 2012 but left in September 2019.

According to the university:

High-profile education researcher has papers retracted and corrected, for plagiarism and misuse of references

A high-profile education researcher has lost one paper, and corrected two others, for plagiarism and misuse of references. She may also have lost a fourth article, but the journal disappeared the paper without a notice.

Constance Iloh, of the University of California, Irvine (UCI), is the creator of the “Iloh Model of College-going Decisions and Trajectories,” which she describes as:

a new and innovative three-component ecological model that illuminates contemporary college decisions and educational narratives while also problematizing the notion of college ‘choice.’

In 2016, Forbes magazine named Iloh one of its “30 Under 30” top figures in education.

Springer Nature ‘continuing to investigate the concerns raised’ about paper linking obesity and lying

What’s the link between obesity and dishonesty?

If that question seems preposterous on its face, you’re probably among the critics of a 2020 paper in Scientific Reports which claimed to find that obese people were more deceptive than thinner folk.

The researchers, led by Eugenia Polizzi di Sorrentino, of the Institute of Cognitive Science and Technologies at the National Research Center in Rome:

explore[d] the link between energy, obesity and dishonesty by comparing the behaviour of obese and lean subjects when hungry or sated while playing an anonymous die-under-cup task.

They found that:

Duke engineering prof corrects seven papers for failures to disclose startup he co-founded

A chemistry journal has issued corrections for seven papers after learning that one of the authors failed to list his ownership of a company with a stake in the research.

The articles, which appeared in Lab on a Chip — a journal “at the interface between physical technological advancements and high impact applications” from the Royal Society of Chemistry — came from the lab of Tony Jun Huang, of Duke University in Durham, N.C. Huang, who holds the William Bevan Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science at Duke, is a prominent figure in the field. According to his bio:

Here’s why you shouldn’t try to republish a paper you had retracted for plagiarism

A trio of speech researchers in India has lost a 2020 paper for a trifecta of malpractice: plagiarism, self-plagiarism (of a previously retracted article, no less!) and falsification of data.

The article, “Speech enhancement method using deep learning approach for hearing-impaired listeners,” appeared in January in Health Informatics Journal, a Sage title.

According to the abstract:

‘Beggers’ can’t be choosers as another meta-analysis is retracted

A group of researchers in China may be asking for a refund after, they claim, they got bad advice from a course in writing meta-analyses that led to a retraction for plagiarism and other problems.

They may not be alone. We’re aware of at least nine articles with similar issues that have been retracted so far, part of a batch of eye-catching meta-analyses.

Suspicions about the now-retracted 2014 paper — and dozens of others — emerged in October of that year, when Guillaume Filion, now at the Centre for Genomic Regulation in Barcelona, wrote a blog post about the articles. Filion and a colleague, Lucas Carey, of Peking University, had noticed a flurry of meta-analyses by researchers in China that had appeared in CISCOM, the articles repository for the Research Council for Complementary Medicine. As Filion wrote:

Spider researcher uses legal threats, public records requests to prevent retractions

The case of Jonathan Pruitt, a spider researcher suspected of fabricating data in potentially dozens of studies, keeps getting weirder.

Pruitt, according to our count, now has six retractions. Currently associate professor and Canada 150 Research Chair at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, he made a name for himself by providing other scientists with field data — much of which now appears to be unreliable.

Among the latest developments in the case is a correction in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, for a 2016 article titled “Behavioural hypervolumes of spider communities predict community performance and disbandment.” That followed this April expression of concern, which read:

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