by publisher – Retraction Watch

When you discover you’re an author on a paper you’ve never seen

Learning a paper with your name on it has been published is typically something to celebrate. But for one climate scientist, a recent notification was the first he learned the manuscript even existed.

So instead of rejoicing, Jan Cermak, a researcher at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany, was busy writing to the journal Chemosphere about a paper he’d been credited with but never seen.

The paper, on meteorologic influences on air pollution in India, has been retracted after it became clear that a visiting fellow included Cermak as a coauthor without his permission.

University vice chancellor’s work crawling with ‘tortured phrases’

The chief executive of a university in Eastern India whose research is full of tortured phrases – possible signs of plagiarism – had two papers pulled in December after investigations found evidence of “compromised” peer review and other red flags in the publications.

A third article by the executive, Amiya Kumar Rath, has also come under scrutiny, a publisher told us.

Rath became vice chancellor of Biju Patnaik University of Technology in Rourkela in 2023. A computer scientist with more than 100 publications, he is listed as the second author of one of the now-withdrawn works, a 2020 review article on inspecting and grading fruits using machine learning.

Deputy department chair loses paper for image duplication, more retractions to follow

An Elsevier journal has retracted a paper coauthored by a deputy department chair at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia and says it plans to retract at least two more of his articles for image-related concerns.

The 2022 paper, in Matrix Biology, describes the regulatory role of proteoglycans in remodeling of the cervix during pregnancy. According to the August 12 retraction notice, 18 of the image panels were duplicates. The paper has been cited 18 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science.

Renato Iozzo, deputy chair of Pathology, Anatomy & Cell Biology at Jefferson, is a coauthor on the study. Neither Iozzo nor corresponding author Mala Mahendroo, a researcher at UT Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, responded to our requests for comment.

Guest post: In the name of Scopus, one hijacked journal easily tricks authors

Editor’s note: Mahmood Anwar is a former business management professor of the National Research University in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. In the course of his research, he keeps an eye out for flawed articles, he told Retraction Watch. He currently mentors 10 to 15 researchers who found him through his YouTube channel, where he discusses research ethics and explains study methods. In his own research, Anwar has covered topics such as feminism in the New Testament and smartphone use and short term memory. Anwar is also on the editorial board for Emerald Publishing’s VILAKSHAN – XIMB Journal of Management and International Journal of Management, Economics & Social Sciences. (Neither journal is indexed in Clarivate’s Web of Science.)

Aside from his research activities, Anwar also founded “Drive in Malaysia,” the country’s “First-ever Traffic Rules & Test Site,” according to the website. In addition to providing road safety education, the company has an independent review board. Anwar says the IRB was formed to approve research internally among the five members of the IRB committee, and most of the studies they review cover social sciences and road safety.

‘Tin Man Syndrome,’ five other case studies retracted following Retraction Watch coverage

*A comparison of the images and an overlay, provided by a sleuth.*

A journal has retracted a study on ‘Tin Man Syndrome’ plagiarized from a decade-old April Fools’ joke — which the author now admits was fake.

On August 15, we wrote about a “rare case report” published in Medicine in which authors claimed they had encountered a case of “ectopia cordis interna” and described an asymptomatic man with his heart located in his abdomen. Sleuths believed the case report plagiarized images from a 2015 satirical paper describing a condition of the same name.

A week later on August 22, Medicine, published by Wolters Kluwer, retracted the paper and five others — all published this year — with shared authors. None of the papers have been cited, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science.

The retracted papers are:

Journal let authors make undisclosed changes that masked stolen content in paper

An Elsevier journal allowed a paper containing extensive plagiarism to remain online, while letting its authors make undisclosed revisions that masked the offense, Retraction Watch has learned. But the journal’s editor-in-chief told us he has subsequently decided to retract the paper.

The article, on cognitive impairment among older adults in India, appeared online on June 15 as a pre-proof in Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics Plus. At that point, its background section included several long paragraphs that were identical, or near-identical, to text in an extended conference abstract from 2024. The study’s objectives and methods also bore strong similarity to the earlier work, which had been conducted by another group of researchers.

Poulami Barman, first author of the conference abstract and a dual-program Ph.D. student in India and Germany, became aware her work had been stolen after one of her supervisors alerted her to the new paper. It turned out she knew the article’s corresponding author well. Like Barman, Madhurima Sharma was a Ph.D. student at the International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS) in Mumbai, and she had previously asked Barman to share her code. Barman had refused to do so until her work was published.

Hive mindfulness: Sleuths’ advice leads to retraction of paper on social connection

A journal has retracted a 2025 paper on social media and anxiety after a reader raised questions about the data – and thanks to the mentorship of a sleuth or two.

The article appeared in 2023 in BMC Psychology, a Springer Nature title. The sole author was Li Sun, whose affiliation is listed as the School of Marxism at Zhoukou Vocational and Technical College, in China.

According to the abstract of the paper, the research explored “the impact of mindfulness-based mobile apps on university students’ anxiety, loneliness, and well-being.” Those apps were “Headspace, Calm, and Insight Timer” which “offer a range of mindfulness exercises and resources for users to explore.”

Authors asked Elsevier to retract papers in 2012. In one case, they’re still waiting.

Elsevier has retracted two papers for image duplication – 13 years after the authors alerted the journal to issues with the work.

The papers are the third and fourth retractions for a group of researchers in Ireland. The team had asked Elsevier journals to retract five papers in April 2012 — one of which is still in process.

The first two papers, published in Cancer Letters, were retracted in 2013.

Then last week, two more articles, published in the European Journal of Pharmacology (EJP), were retracted.

‘Tin Man Syndrome’ case plagiarized from hoax, sleuths say

On April Fools’ Day 10 years ago, radiologist Matt Skalski took part in a website’s annual challenge to prank the radiology community by posting the case of a man with “ectopia cordis interna,” or “Tin Man Syndrome.” Unlike the fictitious metal character from the Wizard of Oz, Skalski’s satirical patient had a heart — in his abdomen.

Now a group of researchers say they encountered the disease in real life, in a 22-year-old patient they claim has “no significant medical history.”

The researchers based in Iraq published their “rare case report” in Medicine in July.

Sage journal retracts nearly 50 papers for signs of paper mill activity

Sage has retracted four dozen papers from one of its journals for suspected paper mill activity.

The publisher started an investigation into the European Journal of Inflammation “after we noticed signs of papermill activity in one of the articles,” Laura West, a corporate communications and public affairs manager at Sage, told Retraction Watch.

The investigation found the papers “contain indicators of third-party involvement,” according to the retraction notice, published August 5. Sage and the editor of the journal decided to retract the articles due to “concerns around author contributions to these articles, as well as concerns around the integrity of the research process.”

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