There’s so much publishing news to report, we don’t always get to cover every retraction when it appears. To get the word out more quickly, sometimes we publish a group of papers pulled for similar reasons, such as duplications. Below, we present five recent cases of plagiarism, such as using text or figures that the authors didn’t originally write.
We’ve added the date of retraction where we could find it:
Continue reading Plagiarism, plagiarism, plagiarism: Five recent cases
The self-proclaimed “father of nutritional immunology,” Ranjit Kumar Chandra, has lost two more papers following the release of a misconduct investigation report by his former employer, Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN).
The report was released last year after Chandra lost his libel suit against the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC). The newly retracted papers were both published in Nutrition Research. On one, the author is listed as “Amrit Jain,” who is allegedly Chandra, as well.
Here’s the retraction notice for the article by Amrit Jain:
Continue reading Nutrition researcher loses two more papers after misconduct findings come to light
Against the authors’ wishes, a pharmacology journal has retracted a paper after receiving two messages questioning the “soundness of the experimental results.”
The editors of the journal, Frontiers in Pharmacology, issued an expression of concern about the paper in April 2016, and investigated it following the allegations. According to the retraction notice, the authors disagree with the retraction.
Here’s the retraction notice for the paper: Continue reading Pharmacology journal pulls paper for “insufficient scientific quality;” authors disagree
So far, we’ve counted more than 300 papers that have been retracted after editors suspected the peer-review process had been compromised — and we’re adding three more to the list.
Editors of the Journal of Food Processing and Preservation became suspicious of the three papers after discovering similarities in reports from supposedly different reviewers. When they were unable to verify the identities of the reviewers, they pulled the papers.
An editor told us that he thinks the reviewer identities were fabricated entirely (as opposed to stolen):
Continue reading Three more papers felled by suspected fake reviews
The editors of a journal that recently retracted a paper after the peer-review process was “compromised” have published the fake reviews, along with additional details about the case.
In the editorial titled “Organised crime against the academic peer review system,” Adam Cohen and other editors at the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology say they missed “several fairly obvious clues that should have set alarm bells ringing.” For instance, the glowing reviews from supposed high-profile researchers at Ivy League institutions were returned within a few days, were riddled with grammar problems, and the authors had no previous publications.
The case is one of many we’ve recently seen in which papers are pulled due to actions of a third party.
The paper was submitted on August 5, 2015. From the beginning, the timing was suspect, Cohen — the director for the Centre for Human Drug Research in The Netherlands — and his colleagues note: Continue reading Editors say they missed “fairly obvious clues” of third party tampering, publish fake peer reviews
A journal has retracted a paper about a molecular diagnosis for leishmaniasis out of concern it could lead to incorrect clinical diagnoses.
According to Parasitology Research, all data behind the figures in the main manuscript and supporting information are correct, but the authors’ misinterpretation of the data could lead doctors to diagnose patients incorrectly.
Let’s take a look at the retraction notice, which tells us a bit more about the nature of the problem: Continue reading Journal pulls parasite paper over potential for patient harm
When a computer scientist approached a journal about editing a special issue, little did the journal know he — or she — was using a stolen identity.
Before the jig was up, someone posing as a researcher named Xavier Delorme had edited three articles on optimization problems for The Scientific World Journal. The scammer used a fake email address, the publisher told Retraction Watch — a common strategy for duping journals in peer review scams. When the real Delorme, who works at École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Saint-Etienne in France, began receiving correspondence about articles he had no involvement in, fake Delorme’s cover was blown.
Upon closer look, the publisher found evidence that peer reviews for some articles may have been submitted using phony identities, as well. The publisher has been unable to identify anyone responsible for the scam.
Here’s the retraction notice, which now appears on five articles from the special issue:
Continue reading Imposter edits journal in latest peer review scam
Physiology and Molecular Biology of Plants has retracted a paper about using Darjeeling tea clones against abiotic stress for problems with one of the figures.
The specific problem: “falsification/fabrication” of data underlying the figure, which the corresponding author — Sauren Das from the Indian Statistical Institute in Calcutta, West Bengal — couldn’t resolve. Das told us he denies the allegations made by the journal.
Meanwhile, three other papers by Das have been questioned on PubPeer.
Let’s take a look at the retraction note: Continue reading Plant biologist’s paper pulled for falsification, three more questioned on PubPeer
Following a “thorough investigation,” the Journal of Conservative Dentistry (JCD) has retracted a paper after concluding that the first author stole the text from another paper when peer reviewing it for a different journal.
The JCD decided that the 2013 paper about white spot lesions and inhibiting the growth of the bacteria Streptococcus mutans in the mouth is a “verbatim copy” of a paper that was rejected by the International Journal of Paediatric Dentistry in 2012 but published by The Journal of Clinical Pediatric Dentistry in 2014.
The first author denied the charges, saying she had finished the paper before reviewing the other, which she suggested rejecting.
Let’s take a look at the retraction note, which tells us more about the journal’s investigation: Continue reading Peer reviewer stole text for her own dentistry paper, says journal investigation
A journal has pulled a paper about tools to knock out a key transcription factor because of a conflict between the authors.
The retracted article is “Generation of Knock down Tools for Transcription Factor 7-like-2 (TCF7L2) and Evaluation of its Expression Pattern in Developing Chicken Optic Tectum,” published just last year in MicroRNA.
We’ll get right to the reason — the retraction note provides one short one:
Continue reading Mystery conflict between authors fells molecular bio paper