Retraction Watch

Fallout over Fukushima fallout papers continues as two are retracted

A radiology journal has retracted two papers about the fallout from the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan over concerns that the researchers used “ethically inappropriate data” from the people they studied.

The articles, which appeared in the Journal of Radiological Protection in 2017, were written by Makoto Miyazaki, of the Department of Radiation Health Management at Fukushima Medical University, and Ryugo Hayano, a professor of physics emeritus at the University of Tokyo. As we reported, both papers were initially subject to expressions of concern last year.

The papers have been cited a total of 26 times, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science.

The retraction notice for “Individual external dose monitoring of all citizens of Date City by passive dosimeter 5 to 51 months after the Fukushima NPP accident (series): 1. Comparison of individual dose with ambient dose rate monitored by aircraft surveys” reads:

Ten takeaways from ten years at Retraction Watch

As we celebrate our tenth birthday and look forward to our second decade, we thought it would be a good time to take stock and reflect on some lessons we — and others — have learned.

Retractions are more common than we — or anyone else — thought they were. Two decades ago, journals were retracting roughly 40 papers per year. Although we were pretty sure they needed to be doing more to police the literature, we had no idea how much more. We also assumed the number was somewhat similar in 2010, but we were off by at least an order of magnitude, depending how you count. Journals now retract about 1,500 articles annually — a nearly 40-fold increase over 2000, and a dramatic change even if you account for the roughly doubling or tripling of papers published per year — and even that’s too few.

Retraction Watch turns 10: A look back, and a look forward

Ten years.

On Aug. 3, 2010, we published our first post on Retraction Watch. Titled, “Why write a blog about retractions?”, the welcome letter to readers outlined our hopes for the new blog. Retractions, we felt then, offered “a window into the scientific process,” as well as a source of good stories for journalists. In both regards, we have not been disappointed.

Weekend reads: ‘Self-promotion journals;’ co-authorship for money, flattening the COVID-19 publication curve

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.

We turn 10 years old on Monday. Can you help us celebrate?

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

The planned retraction of a paper about homeopathy for COVID-19
The retraction of a paper linking 5G technology to COVID-19
Clarivate reversing its decision not to give two journals an Impact Factor this year
The retraction of 46 papers at once for faked peer review
The retraction of a paper called “overtly racist”

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 30.

Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

Springer Nature retracts paper that hundreds called “overtly racist”

Less than two weeks after publication, an essay on poverty and race which critics decried as “unscholarly” and “overtly racist” has been retracted.

The essay, by Lawrence Mead, of New York University, appeared in the journal Society on July 21. It immediately drew the ire of hundreds of academics and advocates who, in a pair of petitions, demanded among other things that the journal retract the paper.

Earlier this week, Springer Nature, which publishes Society, flagged Mead’s essay with an editor’s note stating that it was investigating the matter. Now the publisher has decided to remove the article. The retraction notice reads:

Cite yourself excessively, apologize, then republish the papers with fewer self-citations. Journal says: Fine.

A journal has allowed a geophysicist who cited his own work hundreds of times across 10 papers to retract the articles and republish them with a fraction of the self-citations.

From 2017 to 2019, Yangkang Chen published some of the papers in Geophysical Journal International, an Oxford University Press title, while he was a postdoc at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the U.S., and some as a faculty member at Zhejiang University in China. In April, the journal subjected the works to expressions of concern.

On June 19, the journal published a retraction notice for the 10 papers, along with an editor’s note that read:

Hand surgeon in South Korea loses seven papers for “serious misconduct”

A surgery journal has retracted seven papers by a group in South Korea after an institutional investigation found evidence of “intentional, repetitive, and serious misconduct” in the work.

The articles, by a team at Ewha Womans University and Seoul National University College of Medicine, appeared in the Journal of Hand Surgery (European Volume) between 2016 and 2019.

According to the journal, in June of 2019, a reviewer raised questions about the sample size in a manuscript by the authors (most of whom remain the same across the papers) — triggering an inquiry by the editors that led to Ewha’s investigation.

That investigation found that the first author on all seven articles, Young Hak Roh, an orthopedic surgeon at Ewha, had committed sweeping violations:

Whistleblowers bring receipts, journal retracts swiftly

A group of researchers in China have lost a 2018 paper after whistleblowers informed the journal that the authors had misreported their data.

The paper, “Long‐term outcomes of 530 esophageal squamous cell carcinoma patients with minimally invasive Ivor Lewis esophagectomy,” appeared in the Journal of Surgical Oncology, a Wiley publication. It has been cited five times, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science. The researchers were affiliated with Zhejiang University, in Hangzhou.

According to the abstract:

Journal retracted 46 articles in one fell swoop for faked peer review

In Retraction Watch world, it’s like finding long-buried and forgotten treasure.

A now-defunct journal retracted nearly four dozen papers in a single sweep, citing questions about the integrity of the peer review process for the articles.

The Open Automation and Control Systems Journal, formerly published by Bentham, released a list of 46 articles, which it published in 2015, by researchers from various institutions in China. Bentham dates the retractions to 2016. We learned about the case from a commenter to our recent post about a mysterious incident of plagiarism.

According to Bentham:

Paper called “unscholarly, overtly racist” earns an editor’s note

The journal that recently ran a controversial essay on poverty and race has flagged it with an editor’s note letting readers know about an investigation into the work.

As we reported last week, Society, a Springer Nature title, published a paper by Lawrence Mead, of New York University, who argued that poor Blacks and Hispanics lack certain cultural traits that help European whites succeed in the face of economic adversity:

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