Category: by publisher

Study of autism and vitamin D earns retraction after questions about reliability

Marco Vertch

A pediatrics journal has retracted a 2016 article purporting to be the first randomized controlled trial on the effects of vitamin D supplements on autism over concerns about the reliability of the findings.

The paper, “Randomized controlled trial of vitamin D supplementation in children with autism spectrum disorder,” appeared in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and has been cited 27 times, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science, earning it a “highly cited paper” designation compared to its counterparts of a similar age.

The authors came from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, China, Chile, the UK and Norway. According to the abstract, the researchers looked at the effects of vitamin D supplements on 109 boys and girls with autism:

Continue reading Study of autism and vitamin D earns retraction after questions about reliability

RETRACTED: Authors’ remorse: Researchers retract paper so they can publish it in a journal with a higher impact factor

via Derek Markham/Flickr

It was bound to happen. After more than 4,700 posts, Retraction Watch has a retraction of its own.

Earlier this month, we wrote about the opaque retraction of a paper from an open-access spine journal whose editor told us that the researchers yanked their article so that they could republish it in a more prestigious outlet.

Turns out, that wasn’t the case.

Continue reading RETRACTED: Authors’ remorse: Researchers retract paper so they can publish it in a journal with a higher impact factor

Journalist’s questions lead to expression of concern for paper on melatonin and pistachios

Nicola Kuhrt

A spectroscopy journal has issued an expression of concern over a 2014 paper by researchers in Iran on the amount of the sleep hormone melatonin in pistachios after German authorities — prompted by a journalist’s questions — concluded that the analysis was in error.

The article, “Expression of concern to spectrofluorimetric determination of melatonin in kernels of four different pistacia varieties after ultrasound-assisted solid-liquid extraction,” was published in Spectrochimica Acta A: Molecular and Biomolecular Spectroscopy, an Elsevier journal.

The authors, from the University of Kerman, reported: Continue reading Journalist’s questions lead to expression of concern for paper on melatonin and pistachios

Caught stealing a manuscript, author blames a dead colleague

William Faulkner

As William Faulkner wrote in Requiem for a Nun, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” Farzad Kiani learned that lesson the hard way.

Kiani, of Istanbul Sabahattin Zaim University, was the “author” of a 2018 review article in Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing titled “A survey on management frameworks and open challenges in IoT.” According to the abstract: Continue reading Caught stealing a manuscript, author blames a dead colleague

Here we go again: Paper linking vaccines to cognitive damage (in sheep) retracted

In what seems like another entry in our occasional “Retraction Watch Mad Libs” series, Elsevier has withdrawn a paper that claimed to link the aluminum in vaccines to behavioral changes in sheep.

The paper, which appeared online in Pharmacological Research in November of last year, was swiftly picked up by antivaccine advocates such as Celeste McGovern, whose article about it was posted on Children’s Health Defense, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr’s, site.

But it also earned harsh criticism from Skeptical Raptor and Orac, who called it Continue reading Here we go again: Paper linking vaccines to cognitive damage (in sheep) retracted

Court orders publisher OMICS to pay U.S. gov’t $50 million in suit alleging “unfair and deceptive practices”

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has won a judgment against a publisher and conference organizer that has been widely viewed as predatory.

As reported in brief by Courthouse News Service, U.S. District of Nevada Judge Gloria M. Navarro ordered OMICS International to pay the U.S. government $50,130,810. Among other findings, Navarro writes: Continue reading Court orders publisher OMICS to pay U.S. gov’t $50 million in suit alleging “unfair and deceptive practices”

Russian homeopaths strike again (twice) in virology journal — and a skeptic strikes right back

Alexander Pachin

Homeopathy may not cure disease, but it continues to give journal editors fits, particularly at the hands of a group in Russia that has managed to publish a slew of papers on the spurious practice.

The architect of the effort appears to be one Oleg Epstein, whose company, OOO NPF Materia Medica Holding, makes homeopathic products.

Last May, PLOS ONE retracted a paper by Epstein et al titled “Novel approach to activity evaluation for release-active forms of anti-interferon-gamma antibodies based on enzyme-linked immunoassay.”

The lengthy retraction statement includes the following passages: Continue reading Russian homeopaths strike again (twice) in virology journal — and a skeptic strikes right back

Elsevier looking into how “unorthodox” paper featuring ancient astronauts was published

Elsevier is looking into how one of its journals published a paper which makes bizarre claims about the knowledge of the ancients and contains an acronym with unmistakable and horrific historical significance.

The article, “Puratana Aakasha-Yantrika Nirmana Sadhanavasthu (Ancient Aero-mechanical manufacturing materials),” appeared in a 2017 issue of Materials Today Proceedings and was written by a group of aeronautical engineers in India.

The abstract states: Continue reading Elsevier looking into how “unorthodox” paper featuring ancient astronauts was published

A real headache: Here’s one from the “What else could go wrong?” files

Researchers in China have retracted a 2016 paper in Oncology Letters on the anti-cancer properties of aspirin because, well, it was a disaster from top to bottom.

In the spirit of showing rather than telling, we’ll let the retraction notice do the work: Continue reading A real headache: Here’s one from the “What else could go wrong?” files

When a paper duplicates one in another language, how can editors spot it?

By Petr Kratochvil

Same tea, different mug. Biomolecules, an MDPI journal, has retracted a 2018 paper by on the salubrious effects of tea because the authors had previously published the same article in a Chinese-language journal.

The paper, “Evaluation of anti-obesity activity, acute toxicity, and subacute toxicity of probiotic dark tea,” came from researchers in China and one from Harvard University (oddly, a post-doc in applied physics).

The case highlights a plagiarism problem that may may be difficult to spot, it turns out. According to the retraction notice, the authors were using the same tea leaves in a different cup: Continue reading When a paper duplicates one in another language, how can editors spot it?