Avery Orrall

A year later, Springer Nature journal hasn’t updated article with fake reference to our cofounder

Some people might happily take credit for an article in Nature they did not write. That’s not the case when the credited author is a cofounder of Retraction Watch and the attribution comes in a citation to an article that doesn’t exist.

The reference appeared in a November 2025 paper, published in DARU Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences, which criticized post-publication peer review platforms, specifically PubPeer, as vulnerable to “misuse” and “hyper-skepticism.”

Shortly after it was published, the article began to draw attention from users on — where else — PubPeer, where commenters flagged repetitive language, “essentially identical” paragraph structure, and five references that do not appear to exist, three with incorrect DOIs or links, and one with common authors that was retracted last year.

Computing journal retracts 13 papers, including four from past EIC

An Elsevier journal on computer applications in biomedicine has retracted 13 papers — including four by a former editor-in-chief — for suspicious authorship changes and erroneous citations.

The articles were published in Computers in Biology and Medicine from 2019 to 2023. The October 15 retraction notices list suspicious changes in authorship, irrelevant citations to the work of authors and peer reviewers and self-plagiarism as reasons for retraction.

In 10 cases, the notice states, an “impartial field expert acting in the role of an independent Publishing Ethics advisor” requested the retraction.

Game theory society yanks support for journal after Elsevier fails to renew EIC contract

The Game Theory Society is severing ties with one of its official journals. The move comes two months after the journal’s editors resigned because Elsevier failed to renew the contract for the journal’s editor-in-chief.

The society released a statement on October 9 announcing it will “withdraw its support for and end its association with” Games and Economic Behavior effective November 15.

“Our decision follows Elsevier’s decision not to renew Hervé Moulin’s contract and its subsequent search for new editors without the involvement of the existing editorial board,” the statement says. As we reported in August, Moulin, a business professor of the University of Glasgow, said the publisher “crossed a fundamental red line in the good faith agreement between the Editorial Board and the publisher” by not consulting with the editorial board regarding future editorial appointments. A spokesperson for Elsevier said the publisher asked the board members and Moulin for feedback but did not receive responses.

Japanese institute finds materials researcher with 41 retractions guilty of ‘extensive’ manipulation

An investigation by a national research institute in Japan has concluded one of its former researchers fabricated and falsified figures in seven papers. Two publishers confirmed they are investigating the articles.

Joseph Raj Xavier, of Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences in Chennai, India, has lost 10 other papers this year alone, according to the Retraction Watch Database. His total is currently 41 retractions, earning him a spot on the Retraction Watch Leaderboard.

The National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) in Tsukuba, Japan, found Xavier guilty of fabrication and falsification in “scanning electron microscope images, atomic force microscope images, and scanning electrochemical microscope images, among others,” according to a translation of an investigation report released September 29.

Journal retracts, republishes paper on Long COVID treatment trial

Annals of Internal Medicine has retracted a paper on treatments for Long COVID because the authors did not report dosing information for metformin, one of the drugs tested in the study. The editor-in-chief of the journal called the exclusion “sloppy” and “inaccurate.”

The same day the journal retracted the paper, it published a new version addressing the exclusion. But one researcher told Retraction Watch the replacement still leaves unanswered questions.

Published in March, the clinical trial found the antidepressant fluvoxamine – marketed as Luvox – reduced fatigue and metformin showed no significant benefit for patients with long-term fatigue and other chronic symptoms following COVID illness. Other studies have found fluvoxamine helped reduce depression in patients with Long COVID, and researchers have found starting metformin within three days of being diagnosed with COVID-19 can help prevent long-term effects of the disease.

Former Crick Ph.D. student loses COVID vaccine paper for fabrication

Science Translational Medicine has retracted a paper on COVID-19 vaccines after an institutional investigation revealed a former Ph.D. student fabricated data and falsified images in the article. The retraction is the former student’s second for fabrication this year.

The July 2022 article looked at whether a vaccine targeting a particular part of the SARS-CoV-2 virus could help defend against a wider range of COVID-19 variants in mice. It has been cited 83 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science.

According to the October 14 retraction notice, lead author Kevin Ng, formerly a Ph.D. student at the Francis Crick Institute in London, was responsible for fabricated data in one of the figures and falsifying images in another. Ng admitted responsibility for the fabrication during the editorial investigation, the notice states, which “casts doubt on some other experiments presented in the paper, for which primary data and samples are unavailable, precluding post hoc verification.”

‘Cerebral torment’: IOP retracts nearly 100 conference papers for tortured phrases

IOP Publishing has retracted nearly 100 papers from three of its conference proceedings after the articles were flagged for containing tortured phrases.

Tortured phrases are rephrasings and synonyms — often awkward and nonsensical — substituted in text to evade plagiarism detectors. For example, one of the retracted papers described “savvy lattices” and “shrewd homes” instead of “smart grids” and “smart homes.” Tortured phrases pre-date AI technology.

The recent batch includes 29 retractions from Journal of Physics: Conference Series; eight from Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science; and 43 from Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering.

Wildlife journal issues corrections for missing ethics statements

In what one sleuth called a “systemic failure,” a wildlife journal has issued corrections to a handful of papers not for an error in the articles but to include an item that wasn’t: ethics statements.

The most recent such correction in the European Journal of Wildlife Research (EJWR) was on September 8. According to the notice, authors of a March article on mammal diversity in Mexico provided additional information on the camera trapping method employed in the study — namely, that their research did not require approval from an animal ethics committee.

At least three other similar corrections have appeared in EJWR in the last four years, with several more articles with missing ethics statements flagged on PubPeer by commenter “Pseudotocinclus tietensis.” For example, for a 2021 paper on “understanding human controversies on the return of the wolf through the use of socio-cultural values,” which included a survey of nearly 1,500 people, Pseudotocinclus pointed out the ethics approval section for the paper says “Not applicable.”

Journal investigating paper on heart device with registration number for wrong trial

The publisher of a European Heart Rhythm Association journal is investigating a paper that lists the incorrect registration number for a clinical study of a widely used but controversial heart implant.

The paper, published in EP Europace in May, described a prospective study of the Watchman FLX, from Boston Scientific, for a procedure called left atrial appendage occlusion (LAAO) in 400 people with abnormal heart rhythms. The authors concluded the device was “feasible, safe, and resource efficient, achieving high procedural success and low complication rates.”

Cardiologists have warned of caveats with the device and the LAAO procedure itself, mainly that early studies found LAAO caused a “significantly higher rate of a primary composite endpoint that included stroke, systemic embolism, cardiovascular/unexplained death, and major bleeding.” A study earlier this year found LAAO with a Watchman device increased rates of stroke and other complications when compared to oral medications.

Wiley investigating book chapter on biodiversity for fake references

While reading a chapter from a 2024 book on restoring biodiversity in post-industrial land earlier this month, an ecologist came across a reference to a study on rewilding she wanted to look up.

But the ecologist, who has asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation from the chapter authors, couldn’t find a record of the 2020 paper, purportedly published in Ambio by “Knijn et al.” She decided to check the other references. She told Retraction Watch she found at least eight that didn’t exist.

The ecologist flagged the issue to the book’s publisher, Wiley, on September 7 but told us she never heard back, aside from an automated response.

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