Category: springer retractions

Multiple retractions as brazen plagiarist victimizes orthopedics literature

Several journals in the field of orthopedics and related disciplines have been victimized by an apparent serial plagiarist.

The author, Bernardino Saccomanni, of Gabriele D’ Annunzio University, in Chieti Scalo, Italy—across the boot and up a bit from Rome—appears to have lifted significant amounts of text in several articles.

Last January, for example, Current Reviews in Musculoskeletal Medicine, a Springer title, retracted a 2010 article by Saccomanni, “Painful os intermetatarseum in athletes: a literature review of this condition is presented,” after determining that it plagiarized a 2007 article in the Archives of Orthopaedic Trauma Surgery, also from Springer, with a very similar title, “Painful os intermetatarseum in athletes: report of four cases and review of the literature.”

Osteoporosis International, another Springer publication, has retracted a 2011 paper by Saccomanni titled “Vertebroplasty: an international point of view on this “minimally invasive” surgical technique,” after evidently learning that the point of view wasn’t exactly Saccomanni’s to begin with. Continue reading Multiple retractions as brazen plagiarist victimizes orthopedics literature

Another Hattori retraction over reused figure from cardiology pub

Another paper in Diabetologia by Yoshiyuki Hattori has been retracted for image duplication, marking the second of his articles in the journal to be pulled for that reason.

The notice for the article, “A glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) analogue, liraglutide, upregulates nitric oxide production and exerts anti-inflammatory action in endothelial cells,” states: Continue reading Another Hattori retraction over reused figure from cardiology pub

Duplication earns German HIV researchers a retraction, and a 3-year publishing ban

An HIV researcher in Germany has run afoul of a number of journals because he duplicated his papers in multiple outlets.

The funny business by Ulrich Hengge earned him a 3-year ban on publishing in two journals, the Journal of Molecular Medicine (JMM) and Cells, Tissues and Organs (CTO). (We’ve written about publishing bans — which appear to be fairly rare — before.)

Those journals also sanctioned one of his co-authors, Alireza Mirmohammadsadegh. The JMM’s managing editor, Christiane Nolte, told us by email: Continue reading Duplication earns German HIV researchers a retraction, and a 3-year publishing ban

A model retraction notice in Retrovirology

A retraction appeared earlier this month in Retrovirology that we think could be a model for other scientists and journals facing similar situations. The paper by Canadian and Chinese authors, “The cellular source for APOBEC3G’s incorporation into HIV-1,” was originally published in January 2011 and cited just once, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. Here’s the notice: Continue reading A model retraction notice in Retrovirology

Materials paper retracted after post-doc’s plagiarism

The Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Medicine has retracted a 2011 paper after it was determined that the first author, then a post-doc at the University of Michigan, had plagiarized from another publication.

The first author of the retracted article, “Functionalization of titanium based metallic biomaterials for implant applications,” was the post-doc, Rahul Bhola, who received his PhD from the Colorado School of Mines and went to Michigan to work in the lab of Catherine Krull.

Fruit of that relationship was the paper — and here’s how that worked out: Continue reading Materials paper retracted after post-doc’s plagiarism

Ghost authorship? Two Meccanica retractions as an author’s work is plagiarized by disappearing scientists

About two years ago, Marc Duflot, a research engineer at Cenaero, heard a disturbing tale from a collaborator. The collaborator, it seemed, had been asked to review a paper submitted to a journal, and noticed that it was remarkably similar to a paper by Duflot. Duflot’s collaborator recommended that the journal reject the paper, and it did. Duflot tells Retraction Watch (we added a link to the paper in question):

Then, several months later, I discovered that the…paper had been submitted and accepted in Meccanica. If I remember correctly, I discovered it by searching the web with Google Scholar with terms related to my field of expertise.

So in January 2010, Duflot wrote to the editors of Meccanica to alert them to the plagiarism by the authors, M. Garzon and D. Sargoso of the University of Madrid. He concluded his email:

I am deeply disappointed by the fraudulent behaviour of M. Garzon and D. Sargoso. Strangely, I cannot find any mention of these two people on the web neither of the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Madrid. Otherwise, I would have reported this to the head of their department.

An editorial assistant got back to him: Continue reading Ghost authorship? Two Meccanica retractions as an author’s work is plagiarized by disappearing scientists

A flying what? Symbiosis retracts paper claiming new species arise from accidental mating

In 2009, Donald Williamson made what many biologists said was an extraordinary claim: The reason caterpillars become butterflies is that two different species accidentally mated with one another. As Brendan Borrell explained at the time in Scientific American: Continue reading A flying what? Symbiosis retracts paper claiming new species arise from accidental mating

Can appendicitis be treated with antibiotics? Retraction muddies the waters

The Journal of Gastrointestinal Surgery has retracted a 2009 article for plagiarism, but it almost seems like the editors were looking for any excuse to bail out on the troubled paper.

The article, “Conservative management of acute appendicitis,” by two researchers from Kashmir, India, purported to show that antibiotics might be a safe, surgery-sparing approach to appendicitis in some patients. The study has been cited 14 times by other papers, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowedge. It was also cited in a Consumer Reports article as evidence that as many as 10% of patients “get better without treatment” — a curious interpretation of the data.

But in February 2010, a group of surgeons from Bologna, Italy, challenged the Indian authors in a letter to the journal. The authors expressed interest in the concept, which they said had “significant clinical implications,” but took issue with the methodology of the study: Continue reading Can appendicitis be treated with antibiotics? Retraction muddies the waters

New retractions of diabetes, cardiovascular papers from Japan involve repeat use of figures

At least four retractions have appeared involving the work of a group of Japanese researchers who appear to have reused figures — and doctored them — in multiple manuscripts.

The authors, led by Yoshiyuki Hattori, of Dokkyo University School of Medicine in Mibu (whose motto, by the way, is “where character is developed through learning” a reader points out that we had the wrong Dokkyo initially), published the same figure twice, and in the same year, in the Journal of Cardiovascular Pharmacology and Biochimica et Biophysica Acta.

Here’s a retraction notice from the JCP: Continue reading New retractions of diabetes, cardiovascular papers from Japan involve repeat use of figures

Angiogenesis retracts two papers, cites image manipulation in eight, as PI blames unethical students

The journal Angiogenesis is retracting two articles by a group of researchers in India whom it accuses of using manipulated images in six other publications as well.

According to the retraction notice for one of the papers, “Gold nanoparticles inhibit vascular endothelial growth factor-induced angiogenesis and vascular permeability via Src
dependent pathway in retinal endothelial cells” (we’ve annotated with links and citation data): Continue reading Angiogenesis retracts two papers, cites image manipulation in eight, as PI blames unethical students