sage – Retraction Watch

A new journal record: Sage title retracts 678 more papers, tally over 1,500

The retraction of “a final batch” of 678 articles concludes Sage’s investigation into questionable peer review, citation manipulation, and other signs of paper mill activity at one of its journals, according to the publisher.

Sage has been investigating the Journal of Intelligent and Fuzzy Systems (JIFS) since early 2024 for “indicators that raised concerns about the authenticity of the research and the peer review process underlying these articles,” a Sage spokesperson told us. We reported in August on Sage’s retraction of 467 articles from the journal. The publisher retracted another 416 papers in January. With this latest batch, “our investigation into JIFS is now concluded,” the spokesperson said.

Sage acquired JIFS in November 2023 when it bought IOS Press. The indexing company Clarivate raised concerns about the quality of the articles in the journal shortly after and put the journal’s indexing on hold. Its entry on the Clarivate website still shows the “on hold” flag.

COVID-19 vaccine myocarditis paper raises questions about what earns post-publication peer review

On March 7, a Sage journal published an expression of concern for an article on cases of myocarditis in people who had received a COVID-19 vaccine.

“The Editor and the publisher were alerted to potential issues with the research methodology and conclusions and author conflicts of interest” and had undertaken an investigation of the article, the notice stated. According to one of the authors, the investigation involved two new peer reviews of the paper.

We’ve reported on many cases of authors disagreeing with retractions other publishers issued after conducting post-publication review processes. The papers often involve hot-button issues – pesticide poisoning, the effect of vaping on smoking rates, an estimation of deaths from the use of hydroxychloroquine early in the COVID-19 pandemic, and President Trump’s role in spreading vaccine misinformation on Twitter before the company suspended his account.

Five studies from “Bust Size and Hitchhiking” author retracted

A journal has retracted five papers about the appearance, sexual behavior and attractiveness of women.

Nicolas Guéguen, a professor of marketing at the Université de Bretagne-Sud in France, was an author on each of the papers, published in the Sage journal Perceptual and Motor Skills (PMS) at least 15 years ago. All of the articles garnered expressions of concern in 2023, but Guéguen’s history of misconduct long precedes the PMS papers.

Sleuths have been flagging Guéguen’s work for years for seemingly impossible results. In 2019, he was cleared of wrongdoing by his university, but since then has racked up at least four retractions, according to the Retraction Watch database.

Sage journal retracts another 400 papers

Sage has retracted 416 articles from the Journal of Intelligent and Fuzzy Systems (JIFS), which had a mass retraction of over 450 papers last August.

Before the mass retraction last year, which we covered, Sage paused publication of new articles from the journal, which it acquired when it bought IOS Press in 2023. The journal is now accepting new submissions, according to a Sage spokesperson.

The retraction notice mentions citation and referencing “anomalies,” “incoherent, extraneous text and tortured phrases” and “unverifiable authors and reviewers,” among other signs of misconduct. “These indicators raise concerns about the authenticity of the research and the peer review process underlying the following articles. The Publisher regrets that these were not flagged during the journal’s editorial and peer review processes,” the notice reads.

Most of the researchers are from universities in India and China.

Sage slaps more than 100 papers from one journal with expressions of concern

The Sage journal American Surgeon has issued a mass expression of concern for 116 articles.

The expression of concern states the journal “was made aware” of “concerning author activity” on the articles.

Sage is no stranger to mass editorial actions. In 2023, the publisher pulled large tranches of papers at least three times, and last year it retracted over 450 papers from a journal the company had acquired from IOS Press. The publisher was one of the first to begin retracting papers in bulk, primarily to combat manipulated peer review.

Exclusive: Publisher retracts more than 450 papers from journal it acquired last year

Sage has retracted 467 articles from the Journal of Intelligent and Fuzzy Systems, a title it took on when it acquired IOS Press last November for an undisclosed sum.

The publisher “launched a thorough investigation” into the journal in April, according to a spokesperson, after the indexing company Clarivate “informed us about concerns relating to the quality of some of the journal’s content.”

“The investigation found that the peer review process for some articles was inadequate, leading to the retraction of these articles,” the spokesperson said.

The journal’s editor in chief, Reza Langari of Texas A&M University in College Station, resigned on June 16 “due to differences of opinion on how to proceed” with Sage’s investigation, he told Retraction Watch.

Publisher retracts more than a dozen papers at once for likely paper mill activity

The Scottish Medical Journal has retracted more than a dozen papers dating back to 2020 after concluding the articles were likely produced by one or more paper mills.

The articles, all by researchers in China, covered a range of topics including back pain, pancreatic cancer, hand hygiene and sepsis. Most were meta-analyses.

Here’s the blanket notice for the 13 papers, which the publisher, Sage, lists by url but not title:

Publisher flags papers found by university to involve misconduct more than a year ago

Toxicologic Pathology – a Sage title – has issued expressions of concern for six papers that were among the subjects of an investigation by Azabu University that concluded in November 2022.

The expression of concern, dated March 7, 2024, includes a list of the six articles and reads:

Papers used by judge to justify abortion pill suspension retracted

A journal and publisher have retracted three papers about abortion, including one that has been used in court cases to support the suspension of FDA approval for mifepristone, aka an “abortion pill.”

Sage, the publisher of Health Services Research and Managerial Epidemiology, announced the retractions yesterday and posted a retraction notice covering the three articles.

For one of those articles, initially flagged by a reader, “an independent reviewer with expertise in statistical analyses evaluated the concerns and opined that the article’s presentation of the data in Figures 2 and 3 leads to an inaccurate conclusion and that the composition of the cohort studied has problems that could affect the article’s conclusions,” according to the notice.

Sage retracts more than 200 papers from journal for compromised peer review

The publisher Sage has retracted 209 articles from an engineering journal after an investigation found “compromised peer review or 3rd party involvement,” according to a company spokesperson.

The retractions, all from the International Journal of Electrical Engineering & Education, stem from an investigation that led Sage to retract 122 papers – as well as fire the editor-in-chief and purge the editorial board – in December 2021.

At that time, the company marked 318 additional papers “with more complex issues” with expressions of concern as it continued investigating. All of the papers retracted today previously had expressions of concern.

The 209 articles were retracted with five different notices. Some articles “contain indicators of third-party involvement” and the corresponding authors “were unable to provide a satisfactory explanation,” one read.

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