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How is Elsevier promoting ethical publishing? A guest post

As Retraction Watch readers know, we cover Elsevier’s journals frequently, including a story just last week about their peer review system being hacked. And they’ve written about us, too. So we’re pleased to present a guest post by Elsevier’s Linda Lavelle, General Counsel-North America, about the publisher’s take on plagiarism and other unethical behavior — and what the company is doing to prevent it.

Protecting Good Science: Upholding Publishing Ethics

If a plagiarist plagiarizes from an author who herself has plagiarized, do we call it a wash and go for a beer? That scenario is precisely what Steven L. Shafer, MD, found himself facing recently. Dr. Shafer, editor-in-chief of Anesthesia & Analgesia, learned that authors of a 2008 case report in his publication had lifted two-and-a-half paragraphs of text from a 2004 paper published in the Canadian Journal of Anesthesia.

Wait. Stop. Does the preceding paragraph sound familiar? Chances are, no. But in fact, I lifted it, word for word, from a piece by Adam Marcus in Anesthesiology News, January 2011. (A similar post also ran here at Retraction Watch, with attribution.) Does this kind of cut-and-paste happen in research publishing today? Sadly, yes. According to Science (Vol. 324, May 22, 2009), an estimated 200,000 of 17 million articles in the Medline database may have been duplicates or plagiarized. One percent may seem like a relatively small incidence. But the sheer number is disturbing. Continue reading How is Elsevier promoting ethical publishing? A guest post

RNA paper retracted for “carelessness in including some of the figures”

Here at Retraction Watch, we’ve covered retractions for misconduct, journal errors, editorial system hacking and even no particular reason.

And that’s just in the last week.

However, we’ve identified a new reported reason: carelessness. A paper in Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry claimed to show how a tiny RNA causes fat cells to die.

Instead, the paper died.

Turned out that rather than describe previously published data, the authors say they inadvertently included a figure that had already appeared in another paper.

The retraction for “miR-598 induces replicative senescence in human adipose tissue-derived mesenchymal stem cells via silent information regulator 1,” reads, in full: Continue reading RNA paper retracted for “carelessness in including some of the figures”

“Some sentences…are directly taken from other papers, which could be viewed as a form of plagiarism”

Plant Physiology and Biochemistry has an amusing retraction notice this month that underscores the perils of allowing authors to come up with their own statements.

The paper, “Molecular strategies in manipulation of the starch synthesis pathway for improving storage starch content in plants (review and prospect for increasing storage starch synthesis),” came from a group at Sichuan Agricultural University in China — including its Maize Research Institute — and was published in the December 2012 issue.

Continue reading “Some sentences…are directly taken from other papers, which could be viewed as a form of plagiarism”

Was Elsevier’s peer review system hacked to get more citations?

Last week, we broke the story of Elsevier’s peer review system being hacked. As we reported, that led to

faked peer reviews and retractions — although the submitting authors don’t seem to have been at fault. As of now, eleven papers by authors in China, India, Iran, and Turkey have been retracted from three journals.

After our post, Elsevier’s Tom Reller filled in some details in a post at Elsevier Connect: Continue reading Was Elsevier’s peer review system hacked to get more citations?

Dental papers retracted after investigations find “issue with respect to misconduct”

Sometimes, retraction notices offer tantalizing clues, but no real information. Take the case of a paper called “Florid osseous dysplasia,” which was published last year in Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology by a group at Mumbai’s Nair Hospital Dental College and retracted recently.

Here’s the notice, which is suggestive but doesn’t say much: Continue reading Dental papers retracted after investigations find “issue with respect to misconduct”

De-Toxicology: Authors pull more meeting abstracts, citing journal error

We recently wrote about a group of English scientists who asked Toxicology to de-publish their abstract from a conference proceedings issue. Turns out they were far from alone.

The journal’s December issue has at least five more such removal notices, all for the same problem.

The notices read: Continue reading De-Toxicology: Authors pull more meeting abstracts, citing journal error

Another retraction for Pfizer’s experimental cancer treatment figitumumab

Last month, we brought you news that Pfizer had retracted a paper in the Journal of Clinical Oncology

purporting to show a benefit of their experimental drug for lung cancer figitumumab after discovering that its clinical lead on the project had done analyses improperly.

There’s been another retraction, of a related paper, in the British Journal of Cancer, “Pre-treatment levels of circulating free IGF-1 identify NSCLC patients who derive clinical benefit from figitumumab.” Here’s the notice: Continue reading Another retraction for Pfizer’s experimental cancer treatment figitumumab

Quantum physicists learn about Heisenberg’s (publishing) uncertainty principle the hard way

As Werner Heisenberg famously conjectured, you can’t measure an atomic particle’s momentum and position at the same time. But perhaps the principle named for the German physicist and godfather of quantum mechanics should be applied to another important scientific truth: you can’t publish the same article in two different but competing journals.

Just ask a group led by Ted Sargent, a prominent physicist at the University of Toronto. He and his colleagues recently lost a paper in Thin Solid Films — which sounds like it ought to be the name of an indie movie company, dibs! — on quantum dot solar cells. (If those sound familiar to readers of this blog, there’s a good reason. We wrote about the retraction of another quantum dot paper, this one in Nature Photonics, in October of this year.)

Sargent’s article, “Advances in colloidal quantum dot solar cells: The depleted-heterojunction device,” which he wrote with colleagues in Spain and Switzerland, appeared in August 2011. According to the notice: Continue reading Quantum physicists learn about Heisenberg’s (publishing) uncertainty principle the hard way

Elsevier editorial system hacked, reviews faked, 11 retractions follow

For several months now, we’ve been reporting on variations on a theme: Authors submitting fake email addresses for potential peer reviewers, to ensure positive reviews. In August, for example, we broke the story of a Hyung-In Moon, who has now retracted 24 papers published by Informa because he managed to do his own peer review.

Now, Retraction Watch has learned that the Elsevier Editorial System (EES) was hacked sometime last month, leading to faked peer reviews and retractions — although the submitting authors don’t seem to have been at fault. As of now, eleven papers by authors in China, India, Iran, and Turkey have been retracted from three journals.

Here’s one of two identical notices that have just run in Optics & Laser Technology, for two unconnected papers: Continue reading Elsevier editorial system hacked, reviews faked, 11 retractions follow