Author: Ellie Kincaid

A cancer researcher who lost nine papers in one day as a publisher purged articles offered in “authorship-for-sale” schemes told Retraction Watch he and his co-authors “will soon defend ourselves legally.” 

Last month, the publisher Frontiers announced it had retracted 38 papers after its research integrity team found links to the practice of buying and selling authorship positions. Brokers list advertisements for authorships of scientific papers on dedicated websites as well as social media.  

Nine of the 38 articles Frontiers retracted listed Mostafa Jarahian, formerly of the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) in Heidelberg, as a co-author. 

When we initially reported on the large batch of retractions, one of Jarahian’s co-authors shared an article from Frontiers  indicating the publisher had decided to retract the paper after “concerns were brought to our attention from the German Cancer Research Center regarding the authorship of the article.” 

The publisher PLOS appears close to an agreement with a scientist who sued to stop the addition of an expression of concern to one of her articles, according to a recent filing in the case. 

Soudamani Singh, an assistant professor in the Department of Clinical and Translational Sciences at Marshall University’s Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine in Huntington, W. Va., filed suit against PLOS in April, as we previously reported. 

According to Singh’s complaint, the publisher planned to place an expression of concern on one of her papers after she and her co-authors had requested a correction. 

Singh’s suit sought a temporary restraining order and permanent injunction preventing PLOS from publishing the expression of concern, as well as damages and legal fees. 

An education researcher who had four papers flagged for plagiarism and citation issues threatened to sue the publisher and editors who decided to retract one of the articles, Retraction Watch has learned. 

We obtained the emails containing legal threats by Constance Iloh, formerly an assistant professor at the University of California, Irvine, through a public records request. Iloh, who was named to Forbes’ “30 Under 30” top figures in education in 2016 and briefly taught at Azusa Pacific University after leaving Irvine, sued to prevent the university from giving us the emails, but after a two-year legal battle, a state appeals court affirmed the records should be released. That battle is described in more detail in this post.

Following our reporting in August 2020 on the retraction of one of Iloh’s articles for plagiarism, the disappearance of another, and the correction of two more, we requested post-publication correspondence between UCI, Iloh, and the journals where the papers had appeared. 

The emails UCI released to us in May of this year shed light on the processes three journals took after concerns were raised about Iloh’s work, and how she responded. 

In September 2020, we requested records from the University of California, Irvine, regarding four papers by an assistant professor of education that had been retracted, corrected, or taken down. 

The retraction and correction notices for the articles, written by Constance Iloh, mentioned plagiarism and misuse of references. After our initial reporting, we wanted to see if we could learn more about what happened. 

It took approximately two and a half years for us to obtain the records, detailed in this post. The emails we obtained shed light on the processes three journals took after concerns were raised about Iloh’s work, and how she responded – including with legal threats. 

Here, we tell the story of how we fought in court to get the records, represented by Kelly Aviles, who specializes in cases involving the California Public Records Act and has successfully sued on behalf of the Los Angeles Times.