Retraction Watch

Retraction of review of broccoli’s health benefits is 22nd for deceased author, 5th for one of his postdocs

Broccoli almost certainly is good for you — but just how good might have taken a bit of a hit with the retraction of a 12-year-old review on the vegetable’s health benefits by a notorious fraudster.

By our count, the retraction, which appeared in July, marks the 22nd for Das, formerly of the University of Connecticut, who died in 2013.

It’s also the fifth retraction for Das’ co-author, and former postdoc, Hannah Vasanthi; four of those papers were collaborations with Das but the most recent, in Carbohydrate Polymers, was not. Several other papers by Vasanthi have been flagged on PubPeer — over concerns about plagiarism, image issues and problematic data — and she has had at least four corrections and one expression of concern. (One article by Vasanthi that Elisabeth Bik identified in 2019 appears to contain text lifted from a 2010 article by Bharat Aggarwal, formerly of MD Anderson Cancer Center, whose name may be familiar to Retraction Watch readers.)

Author defends paper claiming COVID-19 vaccines kill five times more people over 65 than they save

The corresponding author of a new paper in an Elsevier journal that claims “there are five times the number of deaths attributable to each inoculation vs those attributable to COVID-19 in the most vulnerable 65+ demographic” says he “fully expected” the criticisms — and that the “real-world situation is far worse than our best-case scenario.”

Ronald Kostoff and colleagues published “Why are we vaccinating children against COVID-19?” in Toxicology Reports in mid-September. In the paper, they colleagues conclude:

Elsevier corrects a retraction notice following questions from Retraction Watch

An Elsevier journal has corrected a retraction notice after we asked questions about what exactly it was saying — but not before the journal’s editor tried to defend what turned out to be a mistaken passage.

The article, “Measurement of performance parameters and improvement in optimized solution of WEDM on a novel titanium hybrid composite,” was published online in Measurement in December 2020. The retraction notice, which appeared online on September 17 of this year, read:

Weekend reads: Paper mill sanctions; UT Austin suspends prof, repays grant funds; researchers in Mexico threatened with arrest

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:

Researcher leaves Wistar Institute as he retracts a Nature paper
Scale whose copyright owner defends zealously falls under scrutiny — and journal takes two years to publish a critique
Springer Nature slaps more than 400 papers with expressions of concern all at once
Paper that ripped off a PhD thesis is retracted
Kyoto University fires researcher for fraud in Kumamoto earthquake studies
Criticism engulfs paper claiming an asteroid destroyed Biblical Sodom and Gomorrah

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 160. And there are now more than 30,000 retractions in our database.

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

Criticism engulfs paper claiming an asteroid destroyed Biblical Sodom and Gomorrah

Scientific Reports is taking heat on social media and from data sleuths for publishing a paper implying that the Biblical story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah might have been the retelling of the devastation wrought by an exploding asteroid in or around the year 1,650 BCE.

To the lay reader — and to peer reviewers and editors, evidently — the article, “A Tunguska sized airburst destroyed Tall el-Hammam a Middle Bronze Age city in the Jordan Valley near the Dead Sea,” makes at least a superficially plausible and scientifically rigorous case.

According to the abstract:

Kyoto University fires researcher for fraud in Kumamoto earthquake studies

Damage from the 2016 Kumamoto earthquake

Kyoto University has fired a researcher after determining that he committed fraud in at least five papers about the deadly Kumamoto earthquake of 2006.

In a report released earlier this week (Sept 28), the institution said it found Aiming Lin guilty of 37 counts of “fraudulent activity” in four of the articles, not including a 2017 paper Lin published in Science which the journal retracted in 2019. The university suspended Lin for a year at the time.

Kyoto University said (courtesy of Google translate) earlier this month Lin was subject to “disciplinary dismissal” in the case:

Paper that ripped off a PhD thesis is retracted

The authors of a 2021 article on “cognitive radio” have lost the paper after the journal learned that they’d pilfered the work from a doctoral dissertation.

“A Cluster-Based Distributed Cooperative Spectrum Sensing Techniques in Cognitive Radio” was published in the proceedings of the 2020 International Conference on Innovative Data Communication Technologies and Application, which was held in Coimbatore, India. The proceedings was a supplement to Innovative Data Communication Technologies and Application, a Springer Nature title.

Cognitive radio, according to Wikipedia, “can intelligently detect whether any portion of the spectrum is in use, and can temporarily use it without interfering with the transmissions of other users.”

Springer Nature slaps more than 400 papers with expressions of concern all at once

A total of 436 papers in two Springer Nature journals are being subjected to expressions of concern, in the latest case of special issues — in this case, “topical collections” — likely being exploited by rogue editors or impersonators.

The move follows the discovery, as we reported in August, of more than 70 papers in a collection in one of the journals, the Arabian Journal of Geosciences, that referred to subjects — aerobics and running wear, for example — seemingly unrelated to geology. That sleuthing began on PubPeer and was broadened by Alexander Magazinov and Guillaume Cabanac. We have now learned that Springer Nature had already been looking into the issues.

Here’s the notice that appears with a list of more than 400 articles from three different topical collections for the Arabian Journal of Geosciences:

Scale whose copyright owner defends zealously falls under scrutiny — and journal takes two years to publish a critique

As long-time readers of this blog know, we’ve spilled more than a few pixels on the work of Donald Morisky. His Morisky Medication Adherence Scale (MMAS) has been a financial boon to himself — and the bane of many researchers who have been forced to either retract papers or pay Morisky what they consider to be exorbitant fees to retroactively license the instrument.

But lately things have been a bit rocky for Morisky. Last year, he and his former business associate (read, legal enforcer) found themselves embroiled in a lawsuit which claims, as we reported, that Morisky used:

their company as a personal piggy bank and taking steps to starve the business of clients and funnel money to his family.

And now, a researcher has questioned the validity of the MMAS, arguing that his review of a foundational paper underpinning the instrument shows serious flaws.

Researcher leaves Wistar Institute as he retracts a Nature paper

A group of researchers at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia have retracted a paper in Nature for data discrepancies and inconsistencies — as well as missing data. And one of the corresponding authors has left the institution, Retraction Watch has learned.

The paper, “IspH inhibitors kill Gram-negative bacteria and mobilize immune clearance,” was published in December 2020 and has been cited 7 times, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science.

Here’s the notice:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: