Why duplicate publications matter: A retraction notice goes above and beyond

Here’s a retraction notice after our own hearts. 

Brain Research Bulletin, an Elsevier journal, has retracted a 2017 article which duplicated a substantial amount of previously published papers by some of the same authors. But unlike many journals, which merely point out the overlap, BRB explains to readers why the copying matters

The article, “Erythropoietin rescues primary rat cortical neurons from pyroptosis and apoptosis via Erk1/2-Nrf2/Bach1 signal pathway,” was written by Rui Li, Li-Min Zhang and Wen-Bo Sun, anesthesiologists at Cangzhou Central Hospital in China. 

According to the notice

Continue reading Why duplicate publications matter: A retraction notice goes above and beyond

Our bads: Publisher error leads to double retractions for psych researchers

Here’s a Halloween tale that will drive authors batty. 

A psychology journal has retracted two papers from the same group of authors in Spain because it published the articles inadvertently.  But in doing so, the Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics, where the two articles were never supposed to appear but did, managed to botch the retractions, too.

One of the articles, “Sudden complex hallucinations in a 14-year-old girl: schizophrenia spectrum disorders versus dissociative disorders-the influence of early life experiences on future mental health,” was published online in June. 

The other, “Abrupt and severe obsessive-compulsive disorder in an 11-year-old girl-PANDAS/PANS syndrome: an entity to be considered-management implications,” appeared in the June/July print issue of the journal. The authors were Parisá Khodayar-Pardo and Laura Álvarez-Bravos, of the Universiy of Valéncia. 

The retraction notices, which arrived in September, read identically: 

Continue reading Our bads: Publisher error leads to double retractions for psych researchers

Researchers publish the same COVID-19 paper three times

If you’re looking for more evidence that researchers are flooding the zone with COVID-19 papers that do little to advance the state of the science, we present Psychology, Health & Medicine

The journal, a Taylor & Francis title, in April published “Mental health burden for the public affected by the COVID-19 outbreak in China: Who will be the high-risk group?,” by a pair of authors in China. The researchers submitted their manuscript on March 19, received acceptance on April 6 and saw the work published on April 14.

Evidently, that wasn’t enough time to run a plagiarism check — or, as you’ll see, other due diligence — because now the journal has retracted the article for being a duplicate of two other papers in different journals. The move came after a staffer at Elsevier — a competing publisher — alerted a portfolio manager at Taylor & Francis about the issue.

In part, PHM can be considered the victim of what looks to be a scheme that took advantage of gaps in the ability to check manuscripts prior to publication. 

Continue reading Researchers publish the same COVID-19 paper three times

Researcher faked the names of Duke and University of Chicago co-authors

via Pixabay

A medical journal has retracted two papers by a researcher with a penchant for fabricating co-authors.

According to the Singapore Medical Journal and earlier news reports, Shunjie Chua published the articles with two fictitious authors: Mark Pitts and Peter Lamark, whom he placed at Duke University and the University of Chicago. 

The articles, “A simple, flexible and readily applicable method of boundary construction to prevent leech migration,” and “A handy way to handle hemoclips® in surgeries,” appeared in 2015. Per the retraction notice for the former

Continue reading Researcher faked the names of Duke and University of Chicago co-authors

In which a researcher named Das plagiarizes from another researcher named Das, one with 20 retractions

via Flickr

Sometimes things get pretty meta around here. 

Exhibit A: The journal Current Medical Chemistry has retracted a 2012 paper for plagiarizing from a 2011 article — and the senior authors of each article share the same last name. 

Ho hum, you say. But that name is one that might be familiar to RW readers.

Here’s the notice

Continue reading In which a researcher named Das plagiarizes from another researcher named Das, one with 20 retractions

Lawyer for researcher deposed in $112.5 million Duke case asks us to remove a post

We receive occasional demand letters from attorneys here at Retraction Watch. Perhaps the most memorable was one in 2013 from an attorney claiming to represent Bharat Aggarwal. That prompted Popehat’s Ken White to enlarge our vocabulary by using the word “bumptious” in a post about the letter.

To that library of letters we can now add one from Martin Weinstein, of Willkie Farr & Gallagher, on behalf of his client Monica Kraft, now of the University of Arizona and late of Duke University. Willkie Farr & Gallagher is “an elite international law firm of approximately 750 lawyers located in 12 offices in six countries.”

Duke, as Retraction Watch readers may recall, settled a False Claims Act case last year for $112.5 million following allegations about how various members of its Department of Medicine’s Pulmonary Division responded to alleged misconduct in the department beginning in 2013. As Duke acknowledged in a court filing, “Kraft was a Principal Investigator for some research projects conducted within the Pulmonary Division and was Division Chief from January 1, 2013 through September 30, 2014.”

The facts in the previous two paragraphs are, as best we can tell, all uncontested. That is also true of all of the facts in the Dec. 20, 2019 post that Weinstein requested we remove.

We cannot, unfortunately, say the same for Weinstein’s letter.

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Duo that used legal threats to force scientists to pay for a tool face off in court

Donald Morisky

Steven Trubow and Donald Morisky made a small fortune through a controversial company that licensed, often at what researchers thought were exorbitant rates, a tool to scientists, wielding the cudgel of costly legal action if they balked at payment. 

Now, in what critics of the pair will doubtless find a delicious irony, the pair is embroiled in a lawsuit over … licensing of the licensing business. 

Morisky, of UCLA, is the developer of the Morisky Medication Adherence Scale (MMAS), a proprietary research instrument he rents out to scholars and institutions — often at fees that have, in some cases, exceeded $100,000. Many researchers who don’t obtain permission have been forced to pay up or retract their work.

Continue reading Duo that used legal threats to force scientists to pay for a tool face off in court

Exclusive: University of Arizona says former researcher committed misconduct by plagiarizing figure

Palash Gangopadhyay

A former researcher in the University of Arizona’s optics school engaged in “a serious case of research misconduct,” Retraction Watch has learned.

Palash Gangopadhyay, who until 2019 was a research scientist at Arizona, used a figure from a 2003 paper by other authors when he co-authored a 2018 paper in Optics Letters titled “High sensitivity magnetometer using nanocomposite polymers with large magneto-optic response,” Wyant College of Optical Sciences dean Thomas Koch wrote to colleagues in an email obtained by Retraction Watch. The 2003 paper appeared in an obstetrics journal.

Figure 4b of 2018 paper
From Figure 3 of 2003 paper

The 2018 paper has been cited nine times, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science.

Koch wrote:

Continue reading Exclusive: University of Arizona says former researcher committed misconduct by plagiarizing figure

PLOS ONE issues expression of concern for study of dog food and heart problems for failure to disclose conflicts of interest, other issues

via Southern California Golden Retriever Rescue

A group of veterinary researchers at the University of California, Davis, has received an expression of concern for their May 2020 study on heart disease in dogs, for failing to adequately disclose conflicts of interest and for other aspects of the article. 

The paper, “Development of plasma and whole blood taurine reference ranges and identification of dietary features associated with taurine deficiency and dilated cardiomyopathy in golden retrievers: A prospective, observational study,” appeared in PLOS ONE. The authors, from the lab of Joshua A. Stern, looked at the effects on the animals of “non-traditional” diets — those high in legumes but low in grains, which contain taurine, a key amino acid. Golden retrievers are known to be particularly vulnerable to cardiac problems associated with a lack of taurine. The FDA has been investigating the connection

According to the authors: 

Continue reading PLOS ONE issues expression of concern for study of dog food and heart problems for failure to disclose conflicts of interest, other issues

Doing the right thing: Alcoholism researchers retract six-week old paper after finding errors

Oh, those insufferably progressive Scandinavians, always doing the right thing.  

A group of alcoholism researchers in Denmark has retracted a 2020 paper on gender and alcohol treatment after finding errors in their results. And they’ve set up a system to avoid similar problems in the future. 

The paper, “Gender differences in alcohol treatment,” appeared in Alcohol & Alcoholism in July, with authors from the University of Southern Denmark in Odense. The paper found that: 

Continue reading Doing the right thing: Alcoholism researchers retract six-week old paper after finding errors