Category: cureus

Today, the journal Cureus — which is no stranger to Retraction Watch — unveiled what they are calling a “Wall of Shame,” which “highlights authors and reviewers who have committed egregious ethical violations as well as the institutions that enabled them.”

Continue reading Is a “Wall of Shame” a good idea for journals?

Cureus has retracted 15 papers, including three on Covid-19, after concluding that the articles were produced in a scheme by a researcher in Pakistan who charged his co-authors to join the manuscripts, lied about the ethics approval for the studies and may have fabricated data.  

The journal says Rahil Barkat, who already had lost a pair of articles in Cureus, charged researchers – some in Pakistan, others elsewhere – “editing fees” of as much as $300 to proofread and sign on to his manuscripts.  

Barkat’s name appears on a few of the now-retracted articles but not all. However, the journal has linked him to the 15 papers. 

Continue reading Firing, publishing ban, 15 retractions for author who ‘defrauded’ co-authors in pay-to-publish scheme

A case of author’s remorse immediately after publication of her paper has the editor of the journal calling “bullshit” on the decision to retract the work. 

The paper, “Stopping the Revolving Door: Reducing 30-Day Psychiatric Readmissions With Post-discharge Telephone Calls,” was written by a trio of authors from AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center, in southern New Jersey and appeared in Cureus on January 12. 

Shortly after publication, the named first author, Antonia Phillip, contacted the journal to repudiate the paper. According to the retraction notice, dated January 14: 

Continue reading ‘Amateur bullshit’ is the price to pay for democratizing scholarly publishing, says editor

The authors of a 2020 case study of COVID-19 have retracted the work because they were “unsatisfied with the quality” of the work. Nor, judging from the retraction notice, should they — or the journal that published the report — be. 

The article was titled “Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Infection Mimicking as Pulmonary Tuberculosis in an Inmate” and was written by a group led by Hina Akbar, of the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, in Memphis. According to the abstract:

Here, we describe a case of SARS-CoV-2 infection in a low prevalence area which was initially diagnosed and managed as pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) in a high-risk inmate population. These ambiguous presentations can lead to mismanagement of such patients resulting in potentially fatal outcomes and public health crises in confined facilities. This also highlights the significance of a high index of clinical suspicion for SARS-CoV-2 especially in high risk and vulnerable populations.

That might be true, but evidently the article did a poor job of making the argument. The nostra culpa retraction notice states: 

Continue reading Authors of a case report on COVID-19 in a prisoner say they ‘are unsatisfied with the quality of [their] work’

Cureus has retracted a pair of case studies after the authors revealed that the informed consent they’d received from the patients had been revoked. 

The fate of articles — both by authors in the United Kingdom — highlight the precariousness of papers that rely on consent from patients or, in one instance, their proxies. 

One paper, “Failure of an Ancient Breast Implant Can Lead to Significant Morbidity,” described the case of a 90-year-old woman who ruptured a 60-year-old breast implant. (The first silicone breast implants arrived in 1962, so the 60-year-old prosthesis would have been among the earliest to be inserted.) 

According to the retraction notice: 

Continue reading Two retractions spotlight the ethical challenges of consent for case reports

The journal Cureus is retracting three articles by a mashup of authors from Pakistan and the United States for plagiarism, which the researchers blame on their use of a hired gun to prepare the papers.

The articles were published over a roughly one-month stretch in August and September 2018 and covered an impressively polymathic range of topics, from lupus to heart disease. Although the list of authors varied, a few names remained constant. One, Asad Ali, of Lahore Medical College and Institute of Dentistry, was the first author on all three papers. Another was Malik Qistas Ahmad, whose affiliation is given as the University of Arizona Cancer Center in Tucson although he no longer works there.   

The papers (not in chronological order) are: “Systemic lupus erythematosus: an overview of the disease pathology and its management”;  “Neurogenic stunned myocardium: a literature review”; and “An overview of the pathology and emerging treatment approaches for interstitial cystitis/bladder pain syndrome.”

John R. Adler, the editor (and founder) of Cureus, told us that a reader pointed out the plagiarism, which escaped the journal’s plagiarism detection system.

The retraction notice for the first reads:

Continue reading “We got scammed:” Authors “sincerely apologize” for plagiarism they blame a ghostwriter for

In 2015, the journal Cureus published two neurosurgery papers from the same corresponding author, one month apart.

Soon after, the journal uncovered “potential irregularities” with two reviews during a routine editorial audit, editor John R. Adler Jr. told Retraction Watch: Continue reading An author was accused of faking peer reviews. Turns out he also falsified two images.