by country – Retraction Watch

Dean accused of plagiarism in Bulgaria not guilty, ministry report says

A governmental ministry in Bulgaria has concluded a dean at Sofia University is not guilty of plagiarism. But it appears the inquiries might not be complete.

As we reported in December, Milen Zamfirov, dean of the faculty of educational sciences at the university, had been accused of plagiarism in a 2021 paper that “seems to have significant overlap” with two other works. In February, two researchers filed a complaint to the country’s Ministry of Education and Science, alleging Zamfirov plagiarized other works in multiple papers.

The ministry assigned three reviewers to assess the articles in question, all of whom are identified only by initials in its report, released July 9.

Panel upholds results of contested U Toronto mammography study

The University of Toronto has quietly published the results of an inquiry into the Canadian National Breast Screening Study that began in 2022 and, it seems, concluded in March 2024.

The panel, tasked with evaluating new allegations about the trial’s randomization, found the evidence it reviewed did not affect the results of the trials, which called into question the value of mammography in women ages 40-59.

Imaging scientist Martin Yaffe of the University of Toronto has long been a critic of the CNBSS, a pair of randomized clinical trials of mammography conducted in the 1980s. In April, we published a guest post in which Yaffe detailed the history of the trial and his critiques of it, as well as new evidence that clinical staff may have unwittingly influenced randomization. He reported this to the Canadian Cancer Society in 2021, and to the university.

Chinese funding agency penalizes 25 researchers for misconduct

In its second batch of misconduct findings this year, the organization responsible for allocating basic research funding in China has called out 25 researchers for paper mill activity and plagiarism.

The National Natural Science Foundation of China, or NSFC, gives more than 20,000 grants annually in disciplines ranging from agriculture to cancer research. The NSFC publishes the reports periodically “in accordance with relevant regulations,” the first report, released in April, states. The organization awarded 31.9 billion yuan, or about US$4.5 billion, in project funds in 2023.

The NSFC published the results of its investigations on June 13. The reports listed 11 specific papers and 26 grant applications and approvals.

Swedish regulators drop investigations into Chalmers’ prosthetics lab

Two Swedish agencies have closed their investigations into a high-profile research center at Chalmers University of Technology that was suspended last year for “shortcomings in the operations.”

The Center for Bionics and Pain Research (CBPR), known for its work on restoring limb function, was scrutinized and ultimately shut down after a university investigation last April found scientists at the center conducted research without sufficient permits, had inadequate quality assurance processes and handled sensitive personal data poorly, and found “shortcomings” in legal agreements for the center’s operations.

Now, subsequent investigations by the country’s Medical Products Agency, which regulates medical devices and clinical trials, and the Ethics Review Appeal Board have ended, with both agencies declining to pursue further action.

Slovak science academy ‘strictly condemns’ government official’s paper on mRNA vaccines

Slovakia’s national science academy has issued a strong critique of a paper on mRNA vaccines coauthored by a member of the country’s parliament. The group called the work “insufficiently detailed” and “lacking controls,” with data that “may be misleading” and conclusions “not supported by sufficiently robust data.”

Peter Kotlár, the paper’s second author, is an orthopedist and represents the far-right Slovak National Party. He is also the commissioner for a review of resource management during the COVID-19 pandemic for the government of populist prime minister Robert Fico, himself known for questioning the science around COVID-19.

The paper appeared May 13 in the Journal of Angiology and Vascular Surgery, published by Herald Scholarly Open Access. “The journal in which the study of Peter Kotlár was published, is not evidenced in databases Web Of Science and Scopus,” a spokesperson for the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Monika Tináková, told us. The issues with the paper reflect “the fact that the journal in which it was published is classified as a so-called predatory journal,” the statement, issued last month, reads.

Chinese funding agency sanctions 26 researchers in latest misconduct report

The organization responsible for allocating basic research funding in China has issued misconduct findings against 26 researchers for violations ranging from breach of confidentiality to image manipulation, plagiarism, and buying and selling authorship.

The National Natural Science Foundation of China, or NSFC, released the results of 15 misconduct investigations on April 11. Several of the investigations involved teams of researchers and many included specific published papers, 53 in total. China has been taking steps to crack down on academic fraud, calling last year for a review of all retracted articles in English- and Chinese-language journals.

Penalties for the researchers ranged from bans on applying for funding or serving as a reviewer, to having research funding revoked — which includes having to return funds already dispersed. In most cases, the restrictions on applying for funding were for three to seven years.

Replication probe finds ‘statistically improbable data’ tied to institute in Bangladesh

A Bangladesh-based organization focused on development economics and its founder have been churning out papers filled with misstatements, inconsistencies, ethical lapses and “statistically improbable data,” according to researchers involved in an ongoing effort to replicate the work.

One journal has already retracted a paper for falsely claiming to describe a randomized, controlled trial and data collection that failed to adhere to the journal’s ethical guidelines. The study, published in the European Economic Review, was retracted following a March 11 report from the Institute for Replication, or I4R. The group is conducting a broader probe into the Global Development & Research Initiative (GDRI), the organization that implemented the intervention described in the paper.

GDRI’s founder and the study’s sole author is Asad Islam, a developmental economist at Monash University in Australia. Since 2022, Islam has received over $2 million in funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and other organizations, according to a copy of his resume. Islam did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the retraction or the broader concerns about the work. But in a statement posted to his now-deleted account on X, he wrote:

Former Italian university head faces retractions and criminal investigations

A prominent Italian pharmacologist under investigation for embezzlement and rigging university contracts has garnered a dozen and a half retractions in the last year for image alterations and duplications.

But Salvatore Cuzzocrea, the former rector of the University of Messina, told us he did not agree with the retractions because they were decided “without clear communication,” and that none of the papers had problems that he wasn’t able to reply to.

Cuzzocrea, a professor of pharmacology at Messina, is set to face an Italian court over rigging bids for university contracts and is under investigation for allegedly embezzling more than 2 million euros worth of reimbursements.

Journal retracts letter about pager explosion injuries in Lebanon

The Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery has retracted a letter it published about a purportedly novel injury observed during the two deadly waves of pager explosions in Lebanon and Syria in 2024, reportedly linked to Israeli intelligence services.

The original letter, “‘Pager’s trauma’ as a new and destructive type of blast injuries,” published Dec. 26, 2024, had not been indexed by Clarivate’s Web of Science. It focused on the September 2024 attacks in Lebanon and Syria, which led to dozens of deaths and thousands of injuries among Hezbollah fighters and some civilians. The attacks were carried out by boobytrapping walkie-talkies and pagers with explosives and are widely believed to have been carried at the direction of Israeli authorities.

The new letter argued such injuries are novel, dubbing them “Pager’s trauma.”

The letter read:

Dental researchers fabricated data in two articles, university investigation found

Two former professors and a former graduate student at Osaka Dental University in Japan reused images between three published articles, according to the findings of an institutional investigation.

The school released the findings of its investigation in January, with a full report in Japanese. The university has not responded to our request for comment.

According to a machine translation of the report, the university found former graduate student Helin Xing, former assistant professor Isao Yamawaki, and former associate professor Yoichiro Taguchi were involved in misconduct. A recent paper of Taguchi’s lists his affiliation as Matsumoto Dental University in Nagano, Japan. He and Xing have not responded to our requests for comment. We were not able to find a current affiliation or email address for Yamawaki.

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