Author: Ross Keith

Author dispute, “considerable overlap” retract chemistry study

Spectrochimica Acta Part A- Molecular and Biomolecular Spectroscopy

A chemistry journal has issued a retraction after “a thorough and time-consuming analysis” revealed two out of four authors did not agree to submitting an article published in May, which also contains “considerable overlap and redundancy” with another paper published a few weeks prior in a different journal.

Shortly after the paper appeared in Spectrochimica Acta Part A: Molecular and Biomolecular Spectroscopy, the journal was told “that parts of the manuscript were reused” from an article in the Journal of the Taiwan Institute of Chemical Engineers that was published online March 16. That led to the investigation, and the discovery of the additional authorship issues.

Here’s the full notice: Continue reading Author dispute, “considerable overlap” retract chemistry study

Another case of plagiarism in papers published only months apart

pageHeaderTitleImageRemember when we recently found PLOS ONE had published two papers with “substantial overlap” from two different groups, that were edited around the same time? Well, we have discovered another similarly perplexing case of plagiarism in two studies published only months apart. But in this instance, we have a possible explanation for how two groups of authors from different institutions could report a similar experiment and data, and even use some of the same text.

It also concerns a paper focusing on cancer biology — in this case, it’s a 2014 paper retracted by Clinical and Investigative Medicine after editors learned that it contained many similarities to a study published only a handful of months before in Tumour Biology.

According to an email from an author on the retracted paper to the editor, Continue reading Another case of plagiarism in papers published only months apart

Mega-correction for updated CPR reporting guidelines

CirculationA major correction has been posted for an update to international guidelines on reporting outcomes of people receiving cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).

Circulation published the paper online in 2014; the correction was issued before it appeared in print, in the journal’s September 29, 2015 issue. “When reviewing the final proof for print publication, the author noticed some errors and requested changes,” according to a spokesperson for the journal’s publisher, the American Heart Association.

The notice is so long, we’re only including the first paragraph, most of which is taken up by just the title of the paper:

Continue reading Mega-correction for updated CPR reporting guidelines

BMJ Case Reports pulled three dental papers for plagiarism

BMJ Case ReportsWe’ve stumbled upon a trio of retractions published in August, 2013 from BMJ Case Reports for “redundant publication” to a group of researchers based in India.

Editors found that the reports, which were published between 2012 and 2013, had considerable “overlaps” with articles that had been published in other journals. Although one of the retracted authors was also an author on one of the overlapping articles, the rest of the authors have no obvious connection to the previous work.

The authors of the three retracted papers are based at the Modern Dental College and Research Centre in India.

One retracted paper, “A rare occurrence of peripheral ossifying fibroma in the first decade of life and its management,” described the case of a 10 year-old girl with a lesion growing on her gums. The notice reads:

Continue reading BMJ Case Reports pulled three dental papers for plagiarism

Case report on cyst surgery sliced by journal for plagiarism

Contemporary Clinical DentistryA case report that detailed the removal of a cyst from the side of a young woman’s face has been retracted for plagiarizing text from a similar case report published two years earlier.

Contemporary Clinical Dentistry posted the notice on July 31. Parts of the 2014 report were “directly copied” from a report published in 2012 by the Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology. Neither of the reports share authors in common.

The notice reads:

Continue reading Case report on cyst surgery sliced by journal for plagiarism

Genetics paper retracted for using material “without permission and/or proper reference”

Molecular Genetics and GenomicsA review article about a tool used to link genes to traits and behaviors has been retracted for including content “without permission and/or proper reference.”

Corresponding author Ali Masoudi-Nejad at the University of Tehran told us that the retraction occurred mostly because the paper included many figures and tables from other sources, and he didn’t realize they needed to seek permission from both the author and the copyright-holder (ie, the publisher). He added that he doubts he is the only one to make this mistake: Continue reading Genetics paper retracted for using material “without permission and/or proper reference”

“Most responsible course of action is to retract:” Duplicated images fell prostate cancer paper

International Journal of CancerA study on the cellular interactions underlying prostate cancer has been retracted after a whistleblower pointed out duplicated images in one of the paper’s figures that were “erroneously presented as unique.”

The International Journal of Cancer posted the notice in June. The authors backed the paper’s conclusions but agreed, “the most responsible course of action is to retract.”

The notice reads:

Continue reading “Most responsible course of action is to retract:” Duplicated images fell prostate cancer paper

Mega-correction to several images in gastric cancer study

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A journal has issued a rather large correction — what we call “mega-correction” — to a 2014 paper on a gastric cancer biomarker that fixes problems with several of the study’s figures.

The authors write that despite the corrections, “the results and conclusions put forth in the article remain unchanged.”

The paper, “TMEFF2 Deregulation Contributes to Gastric Carcinogenesis and Indicates Poor Survival Outcome” explored the role of TMEFF2 in gastric cancer. The researchers found that the protein acts as a tumor suppressor, and low levels can indicate the presence of cancerous cells.

Here’s the full correction notice, published by Clinical Cancer Research in August:

Continue reading Mega-correction to several images in gastric cancer study

Cholesterol paper duplicated; “The authors believed that they had taken the necessary steps to withdraw.”

Biological Reviews

A review journal is pulling a 2013 article about advances in researchers’ understanding of cholesterol after seeing the same article in another journal.

Although the retracted paper appeared first — online in Biological Reviews in February, 2013 — the journal decided to retract it after learning the authors had initially submitted it elsewhere. The first submission was eventually published (with the exception of one author) in 2014 in Frontiers in Bioscience. 

The authors say they “believed that they had taken the necessary steps to withdraw their paper from Frontiers in Bioscience before they submitted to Biological Reviews in June 2012.” Here’s more from the retraction notice:

Continue reading Cholesterol paper duplicated; “The authors believed that they had taken the necessary steps to withdraw.”

“Dual submission issues” retract both copies of ovarian cancer paper

Journal of Cellular PhysiologyAuthors of a study on a potential biomarker for ovarian cancer have been hit with two retractions after the results were published twice.

We don’t usually see both copies of a duplicated paper retracted, but this is a somewhat unusual case. In November 2011, a group of authors submitted the paper to Gynecologic Oncology. But two months’ prior, the first author had decided to also submit the paper to the Journal of Cellular Physiology, without listing three of the other researchers, including the primary author on the paper. It was published by the Journal of Cellular Physiology first, then by Gynecologic Oncology, both in July, 2012. 

Jie Chen, first author on both articles, “takes full responsibility for the dual submission” and “other co-authors should be exempted from all responsibilities,” as the retraction notice from Gynecologic Oncology explains. 

Continue reading “Dual submission issues” retract both copies of ovarian cancer paper