Ellie Kincaid

‘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:

Cancer specialist faked data in at least ten papers, VA and UCLA find

A multiple myeloma specialist “recklessly“ falsified data in at least 10 published articles, according to a joint investigation by the University of California, Los Angeles David Geffen School of Medicine and Veterans Affairs Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System.

The institutions found Alan Lichtenstein, a former staff physician at the VA, committed research misconduct by reusing images “to falsely represent the results” related to 26 pairs of experiments, according to a notice published in the Federal Register.

At least one of the sets of images in each of the pairs “is inaccurate,” the notice stated. The institutions found Lichtenstein had falsified data in “at least ten” of the 13 articles in which the images appeared, perhaps because the investigators could not determine which images, if any, were original.

Wiley corrects retraction notices for ‘inaccurate’ description of why articles were pulled

The Journal of Biochemical and Molecular Toxicology, a Wiley title, has corrected a pair of retraction notices in which “the reasons for the retraction were described inaccurately,” according to the corrections. The original notices also did not include “the authors’ disapproval of the retraction.”

The retracted articles, “The cardioprotective effects of a combination of quercetin and α-tocopherol on isoproterenol-induced myocardial infarcted rats,” and “Protective effects of caffeic acid on lactate dehydrogenase isoenzymes, electrocardiogram, adenosine triphosphatases, and hematology on isoproterenol-induced myocardial infarcted rats,” both appeared in the same journal in 2011, but in different issues. They have been cited 35 times, collectively, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science.

In 2020, Elisabeth Bik posted about the papers on PubPeer, pointing out figures in the articles, which have the same corresponding author, were “unexpectedly similar” to each other. “Note that the lanes represent very different experiments,” she wrote.

Engineering publisher pulled 57 papers in a day for peer review ‘irregularities’

The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers retracted 57 articles on October 1 for inadequate peer review, according to the publisher.

The papers appeared in the journal IEEE Access between July and September of 2020. The journal is open-access, with a current article processing charge of $1,995. It appears to have published more than 10,000 articles so far this year.

The notices retracting each article were identical, and stated:

eLife won’t get an impact factor, says Clarivate

Clarivate, the data company for scholarly publications, has decided to continue indexing some content from eLife in Web of Science, after reevaluating the open-access biology journal’s unusual practice of publishing articles without accepting or rejecting them. The journal will not receive an Impact Factor.

Last month, Clarivate paused indexing new content from eLife, citing a policy on “Coverage of journals/platforms in which publication is decoupled from validation by peer review.”

eLife last year adopted a new model in which it publishes every manuscript its editors send out for review, along with the text of the reviews and an editor’s assessment of the significance of the findings in the paper and the strength of the evidence presented. The editorial assessments of the paper can be “exceptional,” “compelling,” “convincing,” “solid,” “incomplete,” or “inadequate.”

‘All the red flags’: Scientific Reports retracts paper sleuths called out in open letter

Scientific Reports, a Springer Nature title, has retracted an article a group of sleuths described as “a kind of case study of all the red flags for fraud that we look for” in an open letter to the publisher’s head of research integrity.

The article, “Hybrid CNN-LSTM model with efficient hyperparameter tuning for prediction of Parkinson’s disease,” appeared in September 2023. It has been cited 11 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science.

In December 2023, a PubPeer user commented on 13 tortured phrases the Problematic Paper Screener had flagged in the article, such as the use of “Parkinson’s illness,” “Parkinson’s infection,” and “Parkinson’s sickness” rather than Parkinson’s disease.

Another Springer Nature journal has retracted over 300 papers since July

Soft Computing, a Springer Nature title, has retracted at least 335 papers this year, many from issues with guest editors.

The mass retractions began in July, with the latest appearing November 4.

The retraction notes contain identical language to notices in Environmental Science and Pollution Research and Optical and Quantum Electronics, which have also been retracting articles en masse this year:

How an article estimating deaths from hydroxychloroquine use came to be retracted

An article estimating how many people might have died during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic due to the off-label use of hydroxychloroquine in hospitals was retracted in August after advocates for the drug launched a campaign criticizing the study.

French media have reported criticism of the retraction as inappropriate, and speculation the journal caved to pressure from hydroxychloroquine advocates.

In a statement to Retraction Watch, the journal stood by its decision to retract the article due to “some clear fatal flaws” identified in letters to the editor, which it said it declined to publish due to their tone it deemed “not suitable for publication in a scientific journal.”

Declaration of Helsinki revision adds nod to research misconduct

The Declaration of Helsinki on ethical principles for research involving human participants now includes a statement on scientific integrity and research misconduct.

Adopted in 1964 by the World Medical Association, the Declaration of Helsinki was conceived in response to the atrocities committed during World War 2 in the name of medical research on human subjects. The initial document – which has been updated many times over the last 60 years – included five key principles, including the primacy of informed consent, the need for a rigorous calculation of risks and benefits for a given study, and a consideration of the scientific value of a given study – that is, the experiment should be valuable to science and to the subjects involved.

In the recent process of revising the declaration, the World Medical Association added the following two sentences to the “general principles” section of the document:

eLife latest in string of major journals put on hold from Web of Science

Citing eLife’s unusual practice of publishing articles without accepting or rejecting them, Clarivate says it is re-evaluating the inclusion of the open-access biology journal in Web of Science, its influential database of abstracts and citations.

In contrast to the other journals recently placed on hold from indexing, including Elsevier’s Science of the Total Environment, Clarivate has cited a specific policy as the reason for re-evaluating eLife: “Coverage of journals/platforms in which publication is decoupled from validation by peer review.”

A Clarivate spokesperson described the policy as applying to “journals that do not make an editorial decision to accept or reject based on peer reviewers’ comments.”

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