Exclusive: Publisher retracts more than 450 papers from journal it acquired last year

Sage has retracted 467 articles from the Journal of Intelligent and Fuzzy Systems, a title it took on when it acquired IOS Press last November for an undisclosed sum. 

The publisher “launched a thorough investigation” into the journal in April, according to a spokesperson, after the indexing company Clarivate “informed us about concerns relating to the quality of some of the journal’s content.”

“The investigation found that the peer review process for some articles was inadequate, leading to the retraction of these articles,” the spokesperson said. 

The journal’s editor in chief, Reza Langari of Texas A&M University in College Station, resigned on June 16 “due to differences of opinion on how to proceed” with Sage’s investigation, he told Retraction Watch. 

Continue reading Exclusive: Publisher retracts more than 450 papers from journal it acquired last year

Exclusive: Biochemistry journal retracts 25 papers for ‘systematic manipulation’ of peer review

A journal of the UK-based Biochemical Society is retracting 25 papers after finding “systematic manipulation of our peer-review and publication processes by multiple individuals,” according to a statement provided to Retraction Watch. 

The batch of retractions for Bioscience Reports is “​​the first time that we have issued this many retractions in one go for articles that we believe to be connected,” managing editor Zara Manwaring said in an email. 

As academic publishing grapples with its papermill problem, many firms are retracting articles by the dozens, hundreds, or even thousands after discovering foul play

Bioscience Reports already had retracted 20 papers this year, by our count. The latest batch means the journal’s yearly total will surpass 2023, when it pulled 32 papers, and the year before, when it pulled 26. 

Continue reading Exclusive: Biochemistry journal retracts 25 papers for ‘systematic manipulation’ of peer review

Former Maryland dept. chair with $19 million in grants faked data in 13 papers, feds say

Richard Eckert

A former department chair engaged in research misconduct in work funded by 19 grants from the National Institutes of Health, according to the U.S. Office of Research Integrity. 

Richard Eckert, formerly the chair of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, and deputy director of the university’s Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center, faked data in 13 published papers and two grant applications, ORI found. 

The ORI finding stated Eckert “engaged in research misconduct in research supported by” every NIH grant on which he served as principal investigator, totaling more than $19 million. The finding also lists multiple “Center Core Grants” worth hundreds of millions for shared resources and facilities at research centers. 

Continue reading Former Maryland dept. chair with $19 million in grants faked data in 13 papers, feds say

PNAS corrects article by Kavli prize winner who threatened to sue critic

Chad Mirkin

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has corrected an article by a prize-winning chemist following a report by Retraction Watch his threat to sue a fellow scientist who had submitted a letter to the journal critiquing the paper. 

Chad Mirkin, director of the International Institute for Nanotechnology at Northwestern University in Chicago, received one quarter of this year’s Kavli Prize in nanoscience for his work on spherical nucleic acids (SNAs), the topic of the PNAS article. 

As we reported last month, a lawyer representing Mirkin sent a cease and desist letter to Raphaël Lévy, a professor of physics at the Université Paris Sorbonne Nord, accusing Lévy of making “patently false and defamatory” statements about Mirkin’s research in a letter Lévy had submitted to PNAS about the now-corrected article. 

In his letter, Lévy wrote that the article’s “presentation of SNAs as a ‘powerful class of nanotherapeutics’ is misleading.” 

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Supplement maker sues critic for defamation, spurring removal of accepted abstract

A Frontiers journal has taken down the abstract of a “provisionally accepted” article about harms from an herbal supplement after the company that sells the products sued the first author for defamation. 

Cyriac Abby Philips

The author of the paper, Cyriac Abby Philips, a hepatologist at Rajagiri Hospital in Kerala, India, has over 266,000 followers on his X account “TheLiverDoc.” In 2020, another of Philips’ papers about harm from supplements was retracted and removed after the large supplement company Herbalife, whose products the paper impugned, put legal pressure on Elsevier. 

Himalaya Wellness, an herbal supplement company which says its products are based on Ayurvedic practices, last year sued Philips for defamation based on his posts on X about the company’s products. 

Continue reading Supplement maker sues critic for defamation, spurring removal of accepted abstract

Exclusive: Kavli prize winner threatens to sue critic for defamation

Chad Mirkin

One of the winners of the 2024 Kavli Prize in nanoscience has threatened to sue a longtime critic, Retraction Watch has learned. 

In a cease and desist letter, a lawyer representing Chad Mirkin, a chemist and director of the International Institute for Nanotechnology at Northwestern University in Chicago, accused Raphaël Lévy, a professor of physics at the Université Paris Sorbonne Nord, of making “patently false and defamatory” statements about Mirkin’s research.

The demand primarily concerns a letter to the editor Lévy submitted in April to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences regarding an article Mirkin co-authored, “Multimodal neuro-nanotechnology: Challenging the existing paradigm in glioblastoma therapy,” which appeared in the journal in February. 

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‘Rare’ criminal charges for data manipulation in Cassava case send a ‘powerful message’: lawyers

Hoau-yan Wang

The recent criminal indictment of a medical school professor and former scientific advisor to Cassava Sciences on fraud charges for manipulating images in scientific papers and applications for federal funding is a “rare” outcome for such alleged actions that “sends a very, very powerful message.” 

That’s according to lawyers who have worked on research misconduct cases. 

While many investigations by the U.S. Office of Research Integrity and other government watchdogs find scientists manipulated data in grant applications to the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation, few are charged with “major fraud against the United States,” as was Hoau-yan Wang

Continue reading ‘Rare’ criminal charges for data manipulation in Cassava case send a ‘powerful message’: lawyers

Authors – including a dean and a sleuth – correcting paper with duplicated image

via PubPeer

The corresponding author of a paper flagged on PubPeer for an apparently duplicated image will be asking the journal to publish a correction, Retraction Watch has learned. 

The paper, “The BET bromodomain inhibitor exerts the most potent synergistic anticancer effects with quinone-containing compounds and anti-microtubule drugs,” appeared in Oncotarget in 2016. Its authors include Marcel Dinger, now a dean at the University of Sydney, who has said he’s working to correct review papers that cited papermill articles, and sleuth Jennifer A. Byrne, also of the University of Sydney. 

Earlier this month, an anonymous user on PubPeer pointed out areas of images in figure 6B that were “much more similar than expected.” 

Continue reading Authors – including a dean and a sleuth – correcting paper with duplicated image

Superconductor researcher loses fifth paper

Ranga Dias

Ranga Dias, the physics researcher whose work on room-temperature superconductors has been retracted after coauthors raised concerns about the data, has lost another paper for the same reason. 

This retraction brings Dias’ total to five, by our count

The University of Rochester in New York, where Dias is an assistant professor, is investigating his work, Science has reported. Washington State University, where Dias obtained his PhD, is also investigating allegations of plagiarism in his thesis. 

Dias has not responded to our request for comment about his latest retraction, of a 2021 paper in Physical Review Letters titled “Synthesis of Yttrium Superhydride Superconductor with a Transition Temperature up to 262 K by Catalytic Hydrogenation at High Pressures.” The article has been cited 178 times, according to information presented on its abstract page. 

In December, the journal published an expression of concern for the paper, stating it was investigating concerns “regarding the origins and integrity of the transport data” in several of the paper’s figures “with the cooperation of the authors.” 

On June 13, the journal retracted the paper. The notice states: 

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Nature retracts highly cited 2002 paper that claimed adult stem cells could become any type of cell

Nature has retracted a 2002 paper from the lab of Catherine Verfaillie purporting to show a type of adult stem cell could, under certain circumstances, “contribute to most, if not all, somatic cell types.” 

The retracted article, “Pluripotency of mesenchymal stem cells derived from adult marrow,” has been controversial since its publication. Still, it has been cited nearly 4,500 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science – making it by far the most-cited retracted paper ever.

In 2007, New Scientist reported on questions about data in the Nature paper and another of Verfaille’s articles in Blood. Nature published a correction that year. 

The errors the authors corrected “do not alter the conclusions of the Article,” they wrote in the notice. 

Continue reading Nature retracts highly cited 2002 paper that claimed adult stem cells could become any type of cell