Retraction Watch

Years after faked peer review concerns surfaced, journals are still falling for it

A group of authors has lost a pair of papers in a computing journal for monkeying with the peer review process.

The first author on both articles was Mohamed Abdel-Basset of the Department of Operations Research in the Faculty of Computers and Informatics at Zagazig University, in Sharqiya. Mai Mohamad, also of Zagazig, is the only co-author to appear on both papers, which were published in Future Generation Computer Systems, an Elsevier journal.

As we reported previously, the journal has some experience with publishing highjinx.

The latest cases involve the 2019 article titled “A novel and powerful framework based on neutrosophic sets to aid patients with cancer.” According to the retraction notice:

Rejection overruled, retraction ensues when annoyed reviewer does deep dive into data

As a prominent criminologist, Kim Rossmo often gets asked to review manuscripts. So it was that he found himself reviewing a meta-analysis by a pair of Dutch researchers — Wim Bernasco and Remco van Dijke, of the Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement, in Amsterdam — looking at a phenomenon called the buffer zone hypothesis. In this framework, criminals are thought to avoid committing offenses near their own homes.

The paper, for Crime Science, analyzed 33 studies, of which, according to the authors, 11 confirmed the hypothesis and 22 rejected it.

Rossmo, who holds the University Chair in Criminology and directs the Center for Geospatial Intelligence and Investigation in the School of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Texas State University in San Marcos, told us:

Paper on ‘energy medicine’ retracted after reader complaints

An integrative health journal has retracted a 2019 paper two months after issuing an expression of concern about the article distancing itself from the work.

The paper, which appeared in Global Advances in Health and Medicine, was a review of “energy medicine” by Christina Ross, of Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C.

As we reported in March, Ross told us that a reader in England complained to the journal for her suggestion in the paper:

Prominent Chinese scientist failed to disclose company ties in COVID-19 clinical trial paper

Nanshan Zhong, by 东方(美國之音記者) via Wikimedia

One of China’s leading scientists in the fight against COVID-19 failed to disclose ties to a pharmaceutical company in a paper stemming from a clinical trial, Retraction Watch has learned. A co-author on the paper is married to the daughter of that pharmaceutical company’s founder, who herself sits on the firm’s board of directors.

Nanshan Zhong first rose to prominence during the 2003 SARS outbreak for developing “a controversial steroid treatment that cured many SARS patients but left some with debilitating bone issues,” according to NPR. In 2020, TIME named him to the magazine’s list of the world’s 100 most influential people. He was appointed to lead China’s National Health Commission investigation into COVID-19 early last year, and in February 2020 Harvard announced that Zhong would share in a $115 million effort with university scientists to develop therapies for COVID-19.

Last May, Zhong published results from a clinical trial that tested whether a traditional Chinese medicine could be used to treat COVID-19 patients. That paper, titled “Efficacy and safety of Lianhuaqingwen capsules, a repurposed Chinese herb, in patients with coronavirus disease 2019: A multicenter, prospective, randomized controlled trial,” was published in Phytomedicine. It has been cited 67 times, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science, and has two corresponding authors: Zhong, of the Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Health, and Zhen-hua Jia of Hebei Yiling Hospital, in China.

Ecologist who lost thesis awards earns expressions of concern after laptop stolen

Readers may roll their eyes at the various excuses authors use — including flooded labs and “my laptop was stolen” — when their data are unavailable for further scrutiny following questions. But here’s a case in which a stolen laptop is a real story.

On April 5, Daniel Bolnick, the editor-in-chief of The American Naturalist, posted an expression of concern for three studies published in 2018 and 2019:

This Editorial Expression of Concern serves to notify readers of The American Naturalist that the Editorial Board has identified data archiving and statistical concerns regarding three previously published papers.

The statement continues, noting that author Denon Start — who has had two awards from his PhD rescinded, and whose employment status is unclear — “no longer has access to these data:”

Weekend reads: COVID-19 issue pulled; an author announces a retraction; FDA sanctions a company for not publishing results

Before we present this week’s Weekend Reads, a question: Do you enjoy our weekly roundup? If so, we could really use your help. Would you consider a tax-deductible donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance.

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

Editor declines to correct paper with duplicated image after earlier study disappears
Elsevier journal to retract widely debunked masks study whose author claimed a Stanford affiliation
Journal retracts paper by ‘miracle doctor’ claiming life force kills cancer cells
On the perils of scientific collaboration from thousands of miles away
Mask study was “misleading” and misquotes citations, says Elsevier
Paper partly funded by controversial stem cell company retracted

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 122.

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

Paper partly funded by controversial stem cell company retracted

The timestamps always get you in the end.

A widely touted 2017 paper linked to a controversial company promoting regenerative medicine has been retracted after the journal came to doubt the validity of the data thanks to some strange anachronisms and a digital breadcrumb.

“Intra-articular injection in the knee of adipose derived stromal cells (stromal vascular fraction) and platelet rich plasma for osteoarthritis,” appeared in the Journal of Translational Medicine to no small notice.

Mask study was “misleading” and misquotes citations, says Elsevier

Three days after we reported that Elsevier would be retracting a paper about COVID-19 and masks whose author claimed a false affiliation with Stanford, the publisher tells us that the “paper is misleading,” “misquotes and selectively cites published papers,” and that the data in one table is “unverified.”

As we noted earlier this week:

The 2020 paper, “Facemasks in the COVID-19 era: A health hypothesis,” was written by Baruch Vainshelboim, who listed his affiliation as Stanford University and the VA Palo Alto Health System. But the study gained wide circulation earlier this month, thanks in part to some conservative politicians, and became the subject of fact-checks by the Associated Press and Snopes…

Here is Elsevier’s statement in full:

On the perils of scientific collaboration from thousands of miles away

Collaborations can be fraught. Ask David Ojcius.

Ojcius, an emeritus professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Merced, and a department chair at the University of the Pacific, is up to four retractions, five corrections and an expression of concern in papers he wrote with collaborators in China and elsewhere.

Ojcius is the editor-in-chief of Microbes and Infection, which has retracted one of his papers and corrected another.

Journal retracts paper by ‘miracle doctor’ claiming life force kills cancer cells

A “miracle doctor” in China and his colleagues have lost a 2007 paper on the ability of the martial art qigong to treat cancer after the journal that published the work said it failed to properly vet the findings.

Well, the first part of that is true. The second part is implied. We’ll explain.

The paper, “External Qi of Yan Xin Qigong induces G2/M arrest and apoptosis of androgen-independent prostate cancer cells by inhibiting Akt and NF-B pathways,” appeared in December 2007 in Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry, a Springer Nature journal. It has been cited 20 times, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science.

The first author on the study was Yan Xin, whose biography states that he is a “miracle doctor” and one of the world’s experts in the healing properties of qi — the universal life force in traditional Chinese medicine and philosophy. His co-authors include researchers at Harvard, McMaster University in Canada, and the New Medical Science Research Institute in New York City.

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