Retraction Watch

JAMA journal retracts, replaces paper linking nonionizing radiation to ADHD

A JAMA journal is retracting and replacing a 2020 paper which linked exposure to nonionizing radiation — think cellphones, Bluetooth devices and microwave ovens — during pregnancy to the risk for attention deficit disorder later in childhood after a reader pointed out a critical error in the study.

The paper, “Association Between Maternal Exposure to Magnetic Field Nonionizing Radiation During Pregnancy and Risk of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder in Offspring in a Longitudinal Birth Cohort,” appeared in JAMA Network Open and prompted a significant amount of media coverage, as well as activity on social media.

According to the authors:

Former Cleveland Clinic researcher’s papers “more likely than not” included falsified images, says investigation

A former researcher at the Cleveland Clinic who studied cardiac genetics has lost three papers for what an institutional investigation concluded was “more likely than not” a case image falsification.

As we reported last year, the work of Subha Sen, once a highly funded scientist at Cleveland Clinic but who left the institution in 2011, has come under scrutiny on PubPeer (note: a researcher with the same name, but at a different institution, also appears in these search results). With the latest papers, Sen now has ~~nine~~ seven retractions for issues including questions about the integrity of the data and the validity of the images.

The three newest removals involve studies published in the American Journal of Physiology-Heart and Circulatory Physiology between 2004 and 2009. The notices are very similar while referring to different images.

Here’s the statement for the 2005 article, “Inhibition of NF-κB induces regression of cardiac hypertrophy, independent of blood pressure control, in spontaneously hypertensive rats”:

“Serious non-compliance” prompts retraction of book on social justice in Hawai’i

A publisher retracted a book last year after the home institution of one of the editors, the University of Hawai’i, “identified research protocol violations by two of the editors, which constitute Serious Non-Compliance.”

The 2019 book, Voices of Social Justice and Diversity in a Hawai‘i Context, was edited by Amarjit Singh and Mike Devine, of Memorial University in Newfoundland, and M. Luafata Simanu-Klutz of the University of Hawai’i.

According to the book’s description, it:

Weekend reads: An editorial board resigns over interference; what a manuscript rejection means; the scientific 1%

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:

Exclusive: Ohio State researcher kept six-figure job for more than a year after a misconduct finding
Widely shared vitamin D-COVID-19 preprint removed from Lancet server
‘No malicious intent’: Authors retract week-old Science Advances paper based on embargoed data
Publisher retracting five papers because of “clear evidence” that they were “computer generated”
Third journal scammed by rogue editors
‘Conference organizers have ignored this:’ How common is plagiarism and duplication in abstracts?

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 85.

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

Widely shared vitamin D-COVID-19 preprint removed from Lancet server

A preprint promoted by a member of the UK Parliament for claiming to show that vitamin D led to an “80% reduction in need for ICU and a 60% reduction in deaths” has been removed from a server used by The Lancet family of journals.

The preprint, “Calcifediol Treatment and COVID-19-Related Outcomes,” was posted to Preprints with The Lancet on January 22. On February 13, David Davis, a Conservative member of UK’s Parliament, tweeted:

Exclusive: Ohio State researcher kept six-figure job for more than a year after a misconduct finding

In 2016, Mingjun Zhang, a biomedical engineering researcher at The Ohio State University, along with collaborators, published a paper that explored the mechanism behind ivy’s impressive adhesive strength. In it, the authors claimed to report the genetic sequences of the proteins making up the adhesive.

The paper, entitled “Nanospherical arabinogalactan proteins are a key component of the high-strength adhesive secreted by English ivy” appeared in PNAS on June 7 and attracted some media attention.

But shortly after publication, an anonymous whistleblower sent a letter to OSU and PNAS simultaneously: “The authors have knowlingly [sic], intentionally, repeatedly, and substantially misrepresented data in order to publish the manuscript.”

‘No malicious intent’: Authors retract week-old Science Advances paper based on embargoed data

The authors of a paper in Science Advances on methanogens — archaea that produce methane — have retracted the work a week after its publication because they included genetic data that violated an embargo.

The article, published on February 10, was titled “A methylotrophic origin of methanogenesis and early divergence of anaerobic multicarbon alkane metabolism,” and included authors from China, Germany and the United Kingdom. The first author was Yinzhao Wang, of the State Key Laboratory of Microbial Metabolism at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

On February 11, Roland Hatzenpichler, of Montana State University in Bozeman, sounded the alarm:

Publisher retracting five papers because of “clear evidence” that they were “computer generated”

A publisher is retracting five papers from one of its conference series after discovering what it says was “clear evidence” that the articles were generated by a computer.

The five papers were published from 2018 to 2020 in IOP Publishing’s “Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science.” According to an IOP spokesperson, the retraction notices will all read:

Third journal scammed by rogue editors

Burned by the offer of a special issue, a journal has retracted four papers after determining that the guest editors of the supplement were not legit.

Neuroscience Letters, an Elsevier title, published the special issue — “Special Issue on Clinical and Imaging Assessment of Cognitive Dysfunction in Neurological and Psychiatric Disorders” — last summer, but it’s no longer on the journal’s website. The guest editors were listed as “Dr. Kalemaki Katerina Kalemaki, Dr. Hailong Li and Prof. Wiesława Grajkowska.”

This case is the third we’ve seen lately involving journals and publishers scorched by rogue guest editors. For an insider’s look at how such scams can run, check out our 2019 Q&A with Jamie Trapp, whose journal, Physical and Engineering Sciences in Medicine (formerly the Australasian Physical & Engineering Sciences in Medicine), fell victim to one not long ago. A preview:

‘Conference organizers have ignored this:’ How common is plagiarism and duplication in abstracts?

Harold “Skip” Garner has worn many hats over the course of his career, including plasma physicist, biologist, and administrator. One of his interests is plagiarism and duplication the scientific literature, and he and colleagues developed a tool called eTBLAST that compares text passages to what has already been published to flag potential overlap.

A new paper in Research Integrity and Peer Review by Garner and colleagues estimates “the prevalence of text overlap in biomedical conference abstracts.” We asked Garner some questions about the paper.

Retraction Watch (RW): You used a “text similarity engine” called eTBLAST. What is eTBLAST, and what does it do?

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