Ivan Oransky

IEEE retracts plagiarized paper after Retraction Watch inquiries

The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) has retracted a paper it published in 2006 that was identical to another paper it published that same year.

We learned of the two identical papers — both titled “Delay-dependent robust stability of uncertain discrete singular time-delay systems,” one published in the Proceedings of the 2006 American Control Conference, the other in the Proceedings of the 6th World Congress on Intelligent Control and Automation (WCICA) — from a reader in early October.

We alerted IEEE to the identical papers on October 7. The next day, a spokesperson said she was initiating an inquiry. And on November 10, the spokesperson sent us this statement:

Exclusive: University of Glasgow seeking retraction of multiple papers after findings of image manipulation

The University of Glasgow is requesting the retraction of multiple papers by a pharmacology researcher who held various positions there for more than a quarter century.

The story begins in December 2016, when biostatistician Steven McKinney posted on PubPeer about a paper by the researcher, Miles Houslay, in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. That paper was eventually retracted in August 2020, but not before McKinney posted a comment on Retraction Watch that caught the eye of the pseudonymous Clare Francis.

Francis pointed us to comments about a total of eight of Houslay’s papers at that time. And in August 2020, when the JBC retraction appeared, Francis forwarded those to the King’s College, London, where Houslay is listed as having a faculty position, and the University of Glasgow, which he left in 2011.

Behavioral ecologist Jonathan Pruitt’s PhD dissertation withdrawn

Jonathan Pruitt, a behavioral ecologist and Canada 150 Research Chair who has had a dozen papers retracted following allegations of data fraud, now appears to have had his doctoral dissertation withdrawn.

The news, which was first noted by Nick DiRienzo, who co-authored papers with Pruitt but has been one of the scientists trying to cleanse the scientific record of Pruitt’s problematic work, suggests that Priutt now lacks a PhD, generally considered a requirement for professorships.

HHS takes three and a half years to tell us “there are no records responsive to your request”…for a letter we know exists

If you file public records requests regularly, you have likely become used to how long they can take, and how few documents you may end up with. We certainly have. But we’re prompted to share a particularly frustrating experience with the NIH.

Settle in. This is a three-and-a-half year tale — and counting.

On May 8, 2018, we made a public records request to the NIH under the Freedom of Information Act for “Any Correspondence between the Office of Policy for Extramural Research Administration (OPERA) and officials at Duke University during the month of March 2018.” We did so because, as we reported on March 23, 2018 in Science, the NIH had:

Weekend reads: “Passing the professor,” documented; “tortured phrases;” a “catastrophic failure of peer review”

Before we present this week’s Weekend Reads, a question: Do you enjoy our weekly roundup? If so, we could really use your help. Would you consider a tax-deductible donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance.

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

When authors stop responding to requests for data, a journal retracts
COVID-19 vaccine-myocarditis paper to be permanently removed: Elsevier
Four years after anesthesiology society’s request, four articles remain unretracted
Plagiarism of a thesis earns authors a retraction — and a two-year-publishing ban
Exclusive: Urology researcher demoted after misconduct investigation — then becomes chair at another school
Report by former Motherisk lab director of cocaine exposure in a child is subjected to an expression of concern

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 188. There are now more than 30,000 retractions in our database. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately?

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

Plagiarism of a thesis earns authors a retraction — and a two-year-publishing ban

Enamul Haque, whose master’s thesis was plagiarized by other authors

In June of this year, Enamul Haque, a PhD student at the University of Waterloo, in Canada, came across an article in the International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications (IJACSA).

It looked familiar.

That’s because it was copied, in large part, from Haque’s master’s thesis, which he had completed at Canada’s McMaster University and submitted the previous year. Haque wrote to Kohei Arai, the journal’s editor in chief, on June 30, providing detailed evidence of plagiarism:

COVID-19 vaccine-myocarditis paper to be permanently removed: Elsevier

A paper claiming that cases of myocarditis spiked after teenagers began receiving COVID-19 vaccines that earned a “temporary removal” earlier this month will be permanently removed, according to a publisher at Elsevier.

As we reported last week, the article, “A Report on Myocarditis Adverse Events in the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) in Association with COVID-19 Injectable Biological Products,” was published in Current Problems in Cardiology on October 1.

Sometime between then and October 17, the article was stamped “TEMPORARY REMOVAL” without explanation other than Elsevier’s boilerplate notice in such cases:

Weekend reads: Peer review during the pandemic; CEO out after doctored research; more on COVID-19 vaccines and myocarditis

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

Company fires employee, ends cash for citation scheme following Retraction Watch post
Another journal distances itself from cash for citations after Retraction Watch report
Paper linking COVID-19 vaccines to myocarditis is temporarily removed without explanation
Lancet retracts 10-year-old case report
Publisher investigating paper a lucrative scale is based on following Retraction Watch reporting
When ‘out of print’ really means ‘retracted’
Scientist blames grad student for gibberish book chapter — a charge she calls ‘crazy’
Publisher does a “thorough sweep” of alternative medicine journal after a paper is published in error

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 183. There are now more than 30,000 retractions in our database. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately?

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

Company fires employee, ends cash for citation scheme following Retraction Watch post

A company that had offered payment for citations of articles in various journals has ended the practice, and fired the staffer it said was responsible, following reporting by Retraction Watch.

On August 31, we reported that Innoscience Innoscience Research, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, was offering $6 per citation of papers in five different journals, and up to five cites, or $30, per paper, or $150 in total across all five journals. Since then, two journals have distanced themselves from the scheme.

Yesterday, Innoscience told us by email:

Another journal distances itself from cash for citations after Retraction Watch report

A second journal has said it was unaware of a cash for citations scheme that named it as a participant, following our reporting in August.

The Journal of Clinical and Translational Research (JCTR) was one of five journals listed by Innoscience Research that Innoscience would pay $6 per citation to its work, as we reported on August 31. On October 9, another of those journals said it “will not entertain cash requests from the individuals who claim to have cited our articles, nor shall we pay up.”

In “JCTR’s statement on ‘paid citations’ reported by Retraction Watch,” dated October 10, editor in chief Michal Heger writes:

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