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Second study using ‘Tin Man Syndrome’ X-ray under scrutiny following Retraction Watch inquiry

An altered image posted as an April Fool’s joke (left) was used as a figure (right) in a 2021 paper in *Scientific Programming*.

Just as The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was the first of 14 books in a series, our recent coverage of a paper on “Tin Man syndrome” seems to have sequels. After we wrote about a case study describing a man with his heart in his abdomen retracted for plagiarizing images from an April Fools’ joke, a reader flagged yet another paper using the same image.

As we previously reported, the authors of a “rare case report” appearing in Medicine claimed they had encountered a case of a man with asymptomatic “ectopia cordis interna,” in which his heart was in his abdomen. After the article was retracted, the corresponding author admitted the photos had been taken from a 2015 April Fools’ paper in Radiopaedia describing the same (fictitious) condition.

Following that coverage, a reader did a reverse image search of the X-ray in both papers and found a 2021 article from Scientific Programming, published by Wiley. The study recommends a non-conventional ventilation option for treating neonatal respiratory distress syndrome. The paper has been cited twice, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science.

Exclusive: Publisher investigating DNA contamination paper that authors say CDC vaccine committee will consider

The publisher Taylor & Francis is investigating concerns raised on PubPeer about a paper claiming to find DNA contamination in COVID-19 vaccines beyond regulators’ recommended amounts.

The move comes as the U.S. body tasked with making recommendations for vaccine use is scheduled to consider the safety of COVID-19 shots, and two of the study’s authors say their findings will be discussed.

The paper at issue was published September 6 in the journal Autoimmunity, a Taylor & Francis title. Scientific sleuth Kevin Patrick soon posted concerns on PubPeer, which he forwarded to the ethics department of the publisher.

Why has this microRNA review paper been cited more than 2,000 times?

Earlier this year, Marc Halushka, a pathologist at Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, came across a review titled simply “MicroRNA,” an unusually short title in a big field. Looking deeper into the review, published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology in 2018, Halushka found it had been cited more than 2,000 times. He thought this number “shockingly high,” given the article’s brevity and content.

Other, older reviews on microRNA from leaders in the field have been cited far more often, some even tens of thousands of times. But when searching “microRNA” on Google Scholar, the review with that single term as its title is the first result.

Halushka doesn’t think anything in the paper is wrong or out of date. But the citation was among those in a paper he was asked to review that he thought “was clearly a paper mill paper,” he told Retraction Watch. He suspects when people “who know nothing about microRNAs because they are just in the paper mill business” need to cite a review on the topic, they just use the top search result.

Exclusive: Journal bans drug safety database papers as they flood the literature

Starting around 2023, a curious trend took hold in papers on drug safety monitoring. The number of articles published on an individual drug and its link to specific adverse events went from a steady increase to a huge spike.

The data source in most of those articles was largely the same: The FDA Adverse Events Reporting System, or FAERS. In 2021, around 100 studies mining FAERS for drug safety signals were published. In 2024, that number was 600, with more than that already published this year.

Two journals in particular published the bulk of these papers, Frontiers in Pharmacology and Expert Opinion on Drug Safety. In response to the flood, Frontiers started to require independent validation of studies drawing on public datasets. And Expert Opinion on Drug Safety decided in late July to stop accepting submissions altogether that use the FAERS database for this particular type of study.

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.

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