Category: faked emails

Journals retract two heart papers with “nearly identical” abstracts

Screen Shot 2016-02-22 at 4.46.17 PMJournals have retracted two papers after realizing that they contain “nearly identical” abstracts and introductions, published only months apart. 

The two retracted papers, along with a third that also contains similar text, all conclude that a certain polymorphism could signal a risk for coronary artery disease among Chinese people, though each paper presents different data. The papers do not have any authors in common; the first authors are all based at different hospitals in China. The editor in chief of one journal told us that some of the reviewers did not use institutional email addresses, which leaves open the possibility that they were fake emails, and the peer-review process was compromised.

Here’s the first retraction notice, for “Fibroblast growth factor receptor 4 polymorphisms and susceptibility to coronary artery disease,” published in DNA and Cell Biology. The notice states the paper contains:

Continue reading Journals retract two heart papers with “nearly identical” abstracts

Pharmacology journal pulls paper because third party “compromised” peer review

BJCP CoverThe British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology (BJCP) has retracted a 2015 paper about treating heart failure after deciding its peer review process had been compromised.

This paper is one of the many we’ve noticed lately that have been felled by the actions of a “third party” — in this case, a manuscript editing company called EditPub.

The newly retracted paper, “rhBNP therapy can improve clinical outcomes and reduce in-hospital mortality compared with dobutamine in heart failure patients: a meta-analysis,” has not yet been cited, according to Thomson Reuters Web of Science.

Here’s the retraction note, which tells us a bit more: Continue reading Pharmacology journal pulls paper because third party “compromised” peer review

Seven papers flagged earlier for fake reviews now retracted by Elsevier

elsevierElsevier has now retracted the seven papers it flagged in October as being affected by fake peer reviews.

If you’re not keeping track, we are: We have logged a total of about 300 retractions for fake peer review, in which some aspect of the peer-review process becomes compromised — for instance, in the case of the newly retracted papers, authors appear to have created fake email accounts in order to pose as reviewers and give the green light to their own papers.

The same retraction note applies to five of the recently retracted papers:

Continue reading Seven papers flagged earlier for fake reviews now retracted by Elsevier

What happens before a retraction? A behind-the-scenes look from COPE

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Charon Pierson

Ever wonder how editors figure out whether a paper should be corrected, retracted, or left as-is? For a window into that crucial decision-making process, the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) publishes a number of anonymized cases per year, in which they weigh in on a dilemma faced by a journal editor. The organization has weighed in on more than 500 such situations since 1997. We spoke with Charon Pierson, Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners and the Secretary of the Trustee Board and Council at COPE to find out more information about these cases – including the one that affected her most.

Retraction Watch: How does one of the COPE cases get opened? Continue reading What happens before a retraction? A behind-the-scenes look from COPE

Environmental journal pulls two papers for “compromised” peer review

EGAHEnvironmental Geochemistry and Health has retracted two papers after an investigation suggested that the peer-review process had been compromised.

In case you’re counting, we’ve now logged approximately 300 retractions stemming from likely faked or rigged peer review.

The retraction note — which is the same for both papers — explains a bit more about the situation: Continue reading Environmental journal pulls two papers for “compromised” peer review

Fake email address — for author, not reviewer — fells another paper

Screen Shot 2016-02-22 at 10.19.43 AMWe’ve seen many cases of researchers creating fake email addresses to impersonate reviewers that usher their paper to publication.

But in the latest fake email incident, a journal is retracting a paper on liver cancer after the first author created a phony address for the last and corresponding author. Both are researchers at Zhengzhou University in China.

This isn’t the first time that an author has worked around the corresponding author: there’s a case from a few years ago in which the corresponding author didn’t know that the paper was being published at all. Recently, we also wrote about a doctor who was suspended in the UK after submitting papers without her co-authors’ knowledge, including creating a fake email for one of them.

This latest paper had another problem, too: plagiarism. Here’s the retraction note for “The influence of TLR4 agonist lipopolysaccharides on hepatocellular carcinoma cells and the feasibility of its application in treating liver cancer,” published in OncoTargets and Therapy:

Continue reading Fake email address — for author, not reviewer — fells another paper

Authorship, funding misstatements force retraction of satellite study

rslRemote Sensing Letters has retracted a 2015 paper by a pair of researchers in China because the duo was in fact a solo, and the manuscript lied about its funding source.

The article, “A novel method of feature extraction and fusion and its application in satellite images classification,” purportedly was written by Da Lin and Xin Xu, of Wuhan University. But as the retraction notice makes clear, that wasn’t the case: Continue reading Authorship, funding misstatements force retraction of satellite study

Doctor suspended in UK after faking co-authors, data

Screen Shot 2016-02-24 at 11.04.56 AMA doctor in Manchester, UK has received a year’s suspension by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service.

Gemina Doolub admitted that she fabricated research data and submitted papers without the knowledge of her co-authors, including faking an email address for a co-author, a news story in the BMJ reports. The research in question was part of two retractions that Doolub received in 2013, one of which we covered at the time.

Doolub’s research examined ways to treat and avoid microvascular obstruction — that is, blocked arteries. Doolub did the work while at Oxford.

“Intracoronary Adenosine versus Intravenous Adenosine during Primary PCI for ST-Elevation Myocardial Infarction: Which One Offers Better Outcomes in terms of Microvascular Obstruction?” was published in International Scholarly Research Notices Cardiology and has not yet been cited, according to Thomson Reuters Web of Science.

As the BMJ reports, in that paper,

Continue reading Doctor suspended in UK after faking co-authors, data

News site The Intercept says reporter created fake quotes, sources

interceptThe Intercept is apologizing to readers after an investigation revealed one of its reporters fabricated multiple quotes and even created a fake email address for a source to deceive his editors.

The online news site is retracting and correcting several articles by former staff writer Juan Thompson, who was employed there from November 2014 until last month.

In a note issued earlier today, editor Betsy Reed revealed some details of the results of the investigation to readers:

Continue reading News site The Intercept says reporter created fake quotes, sources

Eight retractions for fake reviews lead journal to suspend author nominations

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An investigation has uncovered fake reviews on 21 papers submitted to the Journal of the Renin-Angiotensin Aldosterone System.

After taking a second look at accepted papers with an author-nominated reviewer, the journal discovered that the listed reviewers on the 21 papers, though real people, had never submitted a report.

Eight of the papers have been retracted by JRAAS. The rest had not yet been published, and have now been rejected, explains a commentary by the journal editors. The journal has also stopped allowing authors to nominate reviewers.

The retraction note — the same on all eight papers — explains how the authors “seriously compromised” the review process:

Continue reading Eight retractions for fake reviews lead journal to suspend author nominations