Ellie Kincaid

Finland Publication Forum will downgrade hundreds of Frontiers and MDPI journals

A committee of scholars in Finland has decided to downgrade 271 journals from Frontiers and MDPI in their quality rating system, in a move that may discourage researchers from submitting manuscripts to the outlets.

Both publishers criticized the move, first reported in Times Higher Education, as lacking transparency and seeming to target fully open-access publishers.

Finland’s Publication Forum (JUFO) “is a rating and classification system to support the quality assessment of research output,” which factors into government funding for universities, according to its website. “The objective is to encourage Finnish scholars and researchers to publish their research outcomes in high-level domestic and foreign forums.”

EcoHealth Alliance retracts and replaces paper on potential origin of COVID-19 in bats

The authors of an influential but controversial 2020 paper on the activity of bat coronaviruses in China which proposed the animals as a “likely origin” for the virus that causes COVID-19 have retracted their work and republished a revised version of the analysis. They say their results and conclusions did not change.

The paper, “Origin and cross-species transmission of bat coronaviruses in China,” appeared Aug. 25, 2020, in Nature Communications. It has been cited 154 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science, and by at least two international policy documents.

The authors are affiliated with the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the New York City-based nonprofit organization EcoHealth Alliance, which has come under intense scrutiny by members of the U.S. Congress and others. The U.S. government in May suspended funding for EcoHealth amid concerns the COVID-19 pandemic virus may have developed from research on which the nonprofit and Wuhan lab collaborated – a so-called “lab leak.” EcoHealth has denied the pandemic virus could have emerged from its work.

Journal that published viral study on black plastic removed from major index

Chemosphere, the Elsevier title which in September published an article on “unexpected exposure to toxic flame retardants in household items” such as black plastic cooking utensils, has been removed from Clarivate’s Web of Science index in its December update.

The article, “From e-waste to living space: Flame retardants contaminating household items add to concern about plastic recycling,” received heavy international media coverage questioning whether we should all throw out our black plastic spatulas.

The authors corrected their calculations in a December 15 corrigendum, as reported by Ars Technica. The exposure was an order of magnitude lower than the safe daily reference dose, not approaching it, as they had initially reported, but “this calculation error does not affect the overall conclusion of the paper,” the authors wrote in the notice.

Exclusive: Researcher who received settlement to leave University of Iowa won’t be starting new job

A cardiology researcher who left the University of Iowa with a six-figure settlement earlier this year won’t be starting the new job he’d lined up at the Providence VA Medical Center, Retraction Watch has learned.

Justyn Charon, a spokesperson for the Providence VA, previously told us the researcher, Kaikobad Irani, would begin his new position “around November.” When we followed up, Charon confirmed, “there is currently no plan for Dr. Irani to be employed by VA Providence.”

In the meantime, the University of Iowa in Iowa City has launched an investigation about the leak of a report regarding Irani to Retraction Watch that appears to be an attempt to identify the source of the document.

19 months and counting: Former Hindawi journal still hasn’t marked paper

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.

Science places expressions of concern on two articles as Toronto’s Sinai Health investigates

Science has issued expressions of concern for two articles from the lab of Daniel Durocher, a professor of molecular genetics at the University of Toronto.

The notices, and two more editor’s notes on Nature articles, follow PubPeer comments on several of Durocher’s papers pointing out potentially duplicated images, as described by ForBetterScience. Durocher has responded to many of the comments promising to look into the issues.

Besides his academic positions at Toronto and the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute at Sinai Health, Durocher co-founded Repare Therapeutics, a biotech company with five ongoing clinical trials of potential treatments for cancer.

The two Science articles, “Mitosis inhibits DNA double-strand break repair to guard against telomere fusions” from 2014, and “Orchestration of the DNA-damage response by the RNF8 ubiquitin ligase,” from 2007, together have been cited nearly 1,000 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science.

Wiley medical journal retracts dozens of papers for manipulated peer review, with more to come

International Wound Journal, a Wiley title, has retracted 27 papers since June with notices mentioning “manipulated” or “compromised” peer review.

“A comprehensive investigation examining manipulated peer review in this journal is in progress,” a Wiley spokesperson told Retraction Watch. The publisher anticipates retracting more articles as the investigation continues.

The first retraction of the batch, of the November 2023 article “Analysis of the Association Between Serum Levels of 25(OH)D, Retinol Binding Protein, and Cyclooxygenase-2 and the Disease Severity in Patients with Diabetic Foot Ulcers,” appeared June 14. The notice stated Wiley and the journal’s editor in chief “concluded that the peer review process of this article was manipulated” following an investigation by the publisher.

Crossref suspends company’s membership after Retraction Watch report

Crossref, a nonprofit focused on metadata of scholarly publications, has suspended the membership of a company linked to websites which copied the appearance of journals belonging to Elsevier and Springer Nature, among others from major publishers, Retraction Watch has learned.

The move follows Anna Abalkina’s reporting on Retraction Watch about the activities of Springer Global Publications, which had used its membership in Crossref to assign Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) to papers in 13 journals with similar names to those established by legitimate publishers. The DOIs linked to papers on webpages mimicking the appearance of the original journals.

Springer Global Publications did not immediately respond to our request for comment on the suspension of its Crossref membership. The company previously told us it did not “create, review, or manage the content associated with the identifiers we issue,” and did not publish any journals.

The website of the company has also been suspended by its hosting provider, and is no longer available online.

Company linked to cloned journals of major publishers denies cloning journals of major publishers

After we reported on a new scam to publish papers on webpages remarkably similar to those of Elsevier, Springer, the American Medical Association and other major publishers, the company linked to the clones denied any role in producing the content they contain.

Until we reached out for comment, the company “Springer Global Publication” – which is not affiliated with Springer Nature – had advertised a variety of services on its website, including finding a writer for research papers, editing manuscripts, developing research proposals, analyzing data and managing the peer review process, a collection of services which is a classic attribute of a paper mill. After we emailed them, they removed descriptions of these services from their website, as well as links to papers published in cloned journals, but did not respond before publication of our story.

After our story appeared, we received an email signed by “Administrator – Springergloballtd.com,” in which the company said it did not “create, review, or manage the content associated with the identifiers we issue.”

The company stated:

‘Relieved’: BMJ retracts and replaces article on unexpected weight loss as a sign of cancer

The British Medical Journal has retracted an article examining when unexpected weight loss could be a warning sign of cancer after the authors found an error in their work. The journal published an updated version of the analysis with different conclusions, which the authors think could influence patient care.

The retracted paper, “Prioritising primary care patients with unexpected weight loss for cancer investigation: diagnostic accuracy study,” appeared Aug. 13, 2020. The researchers, led by Brian D. Nicholson, a general practitioner and associate professor in the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences at the University of Oxford, England, used electronic health records data to look for people diagnosed with cancer within six months after a recording of unexpected weight loss.

The authors were attempting to replicate their results in another dataset when they found “some differences in the study findings and study population that we could not easily explain,” Nicholson told Retraction Watch. He continued:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: