An Elsevier chemistry journal has marked more than 60 papers with expressions of concern amid an investigation involving potential undisclosed conflicts of interest among editors, authorship irregularities and manipulation of peer reviews and citations.
One of the notices, published online April 11 in Chemosphere, reads, for example:
Continue reading Publisher slaps 60 papers in chemistry journal with expressions of concern
A researcher has retracted two 2016 papers after discovering problems with the data that negated the findings — and after one of his three listed affiliations denied the research was conducted there.
According to the retraction notices issued by Chemosphere, Hong-Wei Luo incorrectly claimed to be affiliated with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee in one of his three affiliations. His other institutions listed on the papers include universities in Singapore and China.
However, an official from the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore, told us the work in the now-retracted papers was not carried out at the NTU either.
Here’s the first of the retraction notices, issued on August 8: Continue reading Where was chem research conducted? Not here, say two of three listed author affiliations
Elsevier journal Chemosphere may finally retract a paper it learned contained fabricated data in January when a member of the author’s institution requested the paper be retracted.
The paper has been cited at least once since the lies came to light, as we reported earlier this month.
The journal contacted the relevant parties on October 29 with the following email about “Degradation of 2,4-dinitroanisole (DNAN) by metabolic cooperative activity of Pseudomonas sp. strain FK357andRhodococcus imtechensis strain RKJ300,” although no notice has been posted: Continue reading Will journal finally retract fraudulent paper 10 months after an official request?
Journal publishers can be agonizingly slow when it comes to officially retracting a paper.
Here’s a prime example of the consequences of that bureaucratic foot-dragging: Ten months after being told that Fazlurrahman Khan had fabricated his data, and two months after announcing two of Khan’s papers would be retracted from two of its journals, Elsevier still has not retracted either paper.
Worse, at least one of the papers, “Degradation of 2,4-dinitroanisole (DNAN) by metabolic cooperative activity of Pseudomonas sp. strain FK357 and Rhodococcus imtechensis strain RKJ300,” in the journal Chemosphere, has been cited since the announcement was made. In fact, the paper was published in Journal of Hazardous Materials, the Elsevier journal that is dragging its feet retracting another of Khan’s papers, “Aerobic degradation of 4-nitroaniline (4-NA) via novel degradation intermediates by Rhodococcus sp. strain FK48.”
Jim Spain, in whose lab Khan worked at Georgia Tech, reached out to us to express his concerns with this timeline: Continue reading Oops: Elsevier journal publishes paper citing paper it promised to retract two months ago
The hits keep coming for a research group at the Institute of Microbial Technology (IMTECH) in Chandigarh, India.
Last week, we reported that PLoS ONE was retracting three papers by the research group because “there are no data available underlying this study and thus…the published results are fabricated.” Now, according to The Hindu, four more papers are being retracted:
Continue reading Authors of three retracted PLOS ONE papers to retract four more, with one researcher resigning
The journal Chemosphere has retracted two papers over authorship concerns. The problem is, we don’t really know what those concerns are.
Here’s one notice: Continue reading Two murky retractions in Chemosphere for authorship issues