plos one – Page 2 – Retraction Watch

Exclusive: PLOS ONE to retract more than 100 papers for manipulated peer review

In March, an editor at PLOS ONE noticed something odd among a stack of agriculture manuscripts he was handling. One author had submitted at least 40 manuscripts over a 10-month period, much more than expected from any one person.

The editor told the ethics team at the journal about the anomaly, and they started an investigation. Looking at the author lists and academic editors who managed peer review for the papers, the team found that some names kept popping up repeatedly.

Within a month, the initial list of 50 papers under investigation expanded to more than 300 submissions received since 2020 – about 100 of them already published – with concerns about improper authorship and conflicts of interest that compromised peer review.

8 years after three papers are flagged — and after losing original correspondence — PLOS ONE retracts

A group of nutrition researchers in Canada led by the prominent diabetes scientist Emile Levy has lost three papers in PLOS ONE over concerns about the integrity of the data.

The concerns were raised nearly eight years ago by Elisabeth Bik, early in her career as a data sleuth.

In May 2014, Bik told us, she contacted the journal to point out problems with images in the articles, as well as a fourth paper that has received an expression of concern:

Five studies linked to Cassava Sciences retracted

A researcher at the center of questions about a biotech’s controversial experimental treatment for Alzheimer’s disease has lost five papers in PLOS One.

The journal says it is retracting the articles, by Hoau-Yan Wang and colleagues, over concerns about the integrity of the data and the images in the papers. Wang does not agree with any of the retractions.

As we’ve reported, Wang, of the CIty University of New York, helped conduct the studies that formed the backbone of the regulatory filing for the drug simufilam, which Cassava Sciences — formerly Pain Therapeutics — has been trying to bring to market. Cassava, according to a citizen’s petition to the FDA, has funded Wang’s lab for more than 15 years, and two of the now-retracted papers feature Lindsay Burns, a Cassava employee, as a co-author. (The citizen’s petition, which called on the FDA to halt Cassava’s trials, was filed by a law firm representing Cassava short sellers but eventually denied by the FDA because it was not an appropriate venue.)

An author asked for multiple corrections to a paper. PLOS ONE decided to retract it.

After an author requested a slew of changes to a published paper, journal editors reviewed the study and spotted “additional concerns” that led to its retraction.

The study, titled “Pressure regulated basis for gene transcription by delta-cell micro-compliance modeled in silico: Biphenyl, bisphenol and small molecule ligand models of cell contraction-expansion,” was published in PLOS ONE on Oct. 6th, 2020. Its sole author was Hemant Sarin, a “freelance investigator in translational science and medicine” from Charleston, W.Va.

The study was pulled on March 25th with the following notice:

The one that got away: Researchers retract fish genome paper after species mix-up

A group of researchers in Canada has retracted their 2018 paper on the gene sequence of the Arctic charr — a particularly hearty member of the Salmonidae family that includes salmon and trout — after discovering that the sample they’d used for their analysis was from a different kind of fish.

The paper, “The Arctic charr (Salvelinus alpinus) genome and transcriptome assembly,” appeared in PLOS ONE, and has been cited 29 times, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science. Per the abstract:

“There can be no justification for such studies”: Paper on artificial eyes for dogs earns expression of concern

A journal has issued an expression of concern for a 2020 paper by researchers in Korea who have used 3-D printing to create artificial eyes for dogs.

The study triggered a slew of critical comments from readers, who were outraged by the ethics of the research and what they saw as inadequate protections for the animals against pain.

The paper is titled “Custom-made artificial eyes using 3D printing for dogs: A preliminary study,” and the senior author is Kyung-Mee Park, of Chungbuk National University. According to the abstract:

PLOS ONE retracts paper purporting to be about lung ultrasound for COVID-19 but that had suspicious overlap with pre-pandemic article

PLOS ONE has retracted a paper on pneumonia in people with Covid-19 after the authors could not allay concerns about the integrity of their data.

The article, “Lung ultrasound score in establishing the timing of intubation in COVID-19 interstitial pneumonia: A preliminary retrospective observational study,” appeared in September and was written by a group from Zhejiang University School of Medicine, in Hangzhou, China.

About three months after publication, PLOS ONE issued an expression of concern about the article, citing suspicious overlap with a 2018 paper in a different journal. It concluded:

U Maryland virus researcher up to 13 retractions

A veterinary researcher at the University of Maryland has lost seven papers for problematic images and other issues, bringing his retraction total to 13.

Siba Samal, who studies viruses and vaccines, lost four of his articles in March after journals determined that figures in the papers were unreliable. And he was a co-author on papers flagged in a U.S. Office of Research Integrity finding of misconduct by another researcher.

Some of those questions were raised — first, it seems — by Elisabeth Bik, who in November 2015 reported her concerns to PLOS ONE about a different one of Samal’s articles, which she also flagged on PubPeer.

The journal is now retracting that article, titled “Evaluation of the replication, pathogenicity, and immunogenicity of Avian Paramyxovirus (APMV) serotypes 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, and 9 in Rhesus macaques.” According to the retraction notice:

COVID-19 pneumonia paper earns expression of concern — for being similar to a pre-pandemic article

Researchers in China have received an expression of concern for a recent paper on COVID-19 pneumonia after editors were alerted to suspicious similarities between the tables in the article and those in a 2018 study by members of the same group.

In case you missed that: The pandemic started long after 2018.

Paper suggesting vitamin D might protect against COVID-19 earns an expression of concern

PLOS ONE has issued an expression of concern for a paper it published last month suggesting that vitamin D might protect against severe COVID-19.

Central to the concerns is that the authors seem to have been too far out over their skis in asserting a link between the vitamin and the response to the infection. But as the EoC reveals, many of the potential problems can fairly be attributed to porous peer review as much as over-ambitious authors.

The article, “Vitamin D sufficiency, a serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D at least 30 ng/mL reduced risk for adverse clinical outcomes in patients with COVID-19 infection,” came from a group at Tehran University of Medical Sciences in Iran and Boston University in the United States. According to the authors:

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