Two Dutch researchers were preparing a review of preclinical animal models for hemorrhagic stroke last July when they stumbled across a disturbing pattern in the literature.
First, they found many more papers on the topic than the 50 or so they expected based on their experience: more than 600.
Also, nearly every study proposed a different intervention, which was “very unusual,” said René Aquarius, a neurosurgery researcher at Radboud University Medical Center in the Netherlands. “Why would you show a very beneficial effect and then say, ‘let’s do something else?’”
Two decades later, much has changed. I am reassured by the heightened awareness of this issue and the numerous efforts to address it by various stakeholders in the publication process, but I am disappointed that image manipulation remains such an extensive problem in the biomedical literature. (Note: I use the term “image manipulation” throughout this piece as a generic term to refer to both image manipulation (e.g., copy/paste, erasure, splicing, etc.) and image duplication.)
In 2002, I was the managing editor of The Journal of Cell Biology (JCB), and STM journals were transitioning away from paper submissions. We had just implemented online manuscript submission, and authors often sent figure files in the wrong file format. One day, I assisted an author by reformatting some figure files. In one of the Western blot image panels, I noticed sharp lines around some of the bands, indicating they had either been copied and pasted into the image or the intensity of those bands had been selectively altered.
Mike Rossner
I vividly recall my reaction, which was, “Oh shit, this is going to be a problem. We’re going to have to do something about this.” With the blessing of then editor-in-chief, Ira Mellman, I immediately instituted a policy for the journal to examine all figure files of all accepted manuscripts for evidence of manipulation before they could be published. We began using simple techniques, which I developed along with three of my colleagues at the time, Rob O’Donnell, Erinn Grady, and Laura Smith. The approach involved visual inspection of each image panel using adjustments of brightness and contrast in Photoshop, to enhance visualization of background elements.
In an episode reminiscent of the AI-generated graphic of a rat with a giant penis, another paper with an anatomically incorrect image has been retracted after it attracted attention on social media. The authors admit using ChatGPT to make the diagram.
According to the retraction notice published July 12, the article, by researchers at Guangdong Provincial Hydroelectric Hospital in Guangzhou, China, was retracted after “concerns were raised over the integrity of the data and an inaccurate figure.”
The paper, published in Lippincott’s Medicine, purported to describe a randomized controlled trial that found alkaline water could reduce pain and alleviate symptoms of chronic gouty arthritis.
A university vice president has received his first retraction – and disagrees with it, according to the journal.
The retraction for Jaydutt Vadgama, the Vice President for Research and Health Affairs at the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science, comes after a commenter on PubPeer noted similarities between data in two papers from the same group. Similar comments have led to corrections to two other papers by Vadgama, who is also professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California, Los Angeles.
In the autumn of 2022, a researcher in Turkey was reviewing a paper for a cardiology journal when an image of a Western blot caught her eye: A hardly visible pair of “unusual” lighter pixels seemed out of place. Magnification only bolstered her suspicion that something was off.
“This image made me think that the bands were cut one by one and pasted on a membrane background,” Şenay Akin, of Hacettepe University in Ankara, wrote in her comments to the editor of Cardiovascular Drugs and Therapy, a Springer Nature journal. “If this is the case, it indicates a manipulation [of] the results of this study.”
The editor, Yochai Birnbaum of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, made a note to check the figure, adding below Akin’s comments in the editorial-management system: “I agree with the reviewer. It could be that the I/R band was manipulated.”
The director of one the nation’s premier cancer centers has been suspended amid concerns over several of his papers – but he tells Retraction Watch it is unrelated to comments about that work on PubPeer.
An email Wednesday to employees at New York University’s medical center – and a subsequent message to staff at the institution’s Perlmutter Cancer Center – explained that Benjamin Neel, the former director of the center, had been suspended.
The letter, signed by Steven Abramson, a rheumatologist and executive vice president at NYU Langone Health, did not state the reason for the move:
The chair of the Department of Pulmonary Immunology at the University of Texas at Tyler Health Science Center lost a paper last year after an institutional investigation found several issues with the data in the article.
Although the researcher, Ramakrishna Vankayalapati, is still identified as the chair on his online profile and the department’s website, he no longer holds that position, Retraction Watch has learned.
Another article co-authored by Australian journalist Maryanne Demasi will be marked with an expression of concern for image duplication, Retraction Watch has learned.
Demasi’s reporting has cast doubt on statins and raised the possibility of a link between wi-fi and brain tumors – controversial claims she and co-authors have previously told us they believe made her scientific publications a target of critique. She has not responded to our request for comment on the forthcoming expression of concern.
Following an investigation by the University of Adelaide into allegations of image manipulation in Demasi’s PhD thesis in rheumatology, one paper that resulted from the dissertation was retracted and another was marked with an expression of concern.
A former associate dean for research at the University of Wyoming who was named as one of Clarivate’s Highly Cited Researchers for 2021 was sanctioned by the university years ago, Retraction Watch has learned.
Jun Ren, who studies the heart and diabetes, left Wyoming sometime in 2019 or 2020, according to a press release noting his citation achievements, after serving at different times as director of the NIH-funded INBRE program as well as associate dean. But following an investigation of his work between 2013 and 2015 that Ren says found “reckless mistakes” and “no intention to obtain specific results,” he was removed as director of what he says was a multi-million dollar research program and lost “administrative, editorial, grant review and advisor positions.”
A UPenn professor now has six papers with a correction, expression of concern, or retraction in two PLOS journals after one published an extensive correction to a 2018 paper.
The correction adds to two retractions and three expressions of concern for papers in PLOS Pathogens and PLOS ONE with Erle Robertson, a microbiology professor and vice chair of research for the department of otorhinolaryngology at the University of Pennsylvania, as a senior author. The actions on each paper happened after commenters on PubPeer pointed out issues.
