Retraction Watch

Weekend reads: The fate of fraudsters; TV doctors sting a predatory journal; best paper title ever?

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The week at Retraction Watch featured:

A whistleblower’s allegations about hundreds of dodgy papers from four groups
The retraction of 20 book reviews by a PhD student for plagiarism
The retraction of a highly cited Science paper
A professor’s departure after retractions for data anomalies
A ban on federal US funding for a researcher who has received more than $17 million in grants

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 31.

Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

Former Maryland researcher banned from Federal funding for misconduct

At least seven years after questions were first raised about work by a researcher at the University of Maryland Baltimore, School of Medicine, he has agreed to a three-year ban on Federal funding.

Anil Jaiswal, whose first retraction appeared in 2013, faked data in eight NIH grant applications and six papers supported by Federal grants, according to a new finding by the Office of Research Integrity (ORI). Jaiswal, the ORI said,

intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly: (a) used random blank background sections of film or empty boxes to falsely represent or fabricate western blot analyses; (b) used manipulated images to generate and report falsified data in figures; and (c) used mislabeled images to falsely report data in figures.

The ‘Iran Connection’: A ring of four research groups has published hundreds of dodgy papers, says whistleblower

A scheme of far-reaching research misconduct among several groups of Iranian researchers may have created hundreds of low-quality and fraudulent publications, according to a new detailed report by an anonymous whistleblower who has already forced the retraction of dozens of papers by one author in the ring.

The whistleblower, who goes by the pseudonym Artemisia Stricta, says that he or she is an expert in the field of construction engineering — the same as researchers behind the alleged misconduct.

In a new report now being made public by Retraction Watch, Artemisia draws attention to four main groups centered on Ali Nazari, Mostafa Jalal, a postdoc at Texas A&M University, Ehsan Mohseni of the University of Newcastle in Australia, and Alireza Najigivi of Sharif University of Technology in Tehran. The whistleblower lists a total of 287 potentially compromised papers in the 42-page report.

Consumer researcher leaves Pitt after retractions for data anomalies

A brand researcher has parted ways with the Katz Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh, Retraction Watch has learned.

The researcher, Nicole Verrochi Coleman, was an associate professor of business administration. Her staff profile disappeared a few weeks after several recent retractions came to light. A Pitt spokesperson confirmed that Coleman was no longer at the university.

Journals pulled several of Coleman’s consumer research articles after learning of “unexplained irregularities” in her data. Coleman’s staff profile at the university now directs to a“page not found” error.

Authors retract highly cited 2014 Science paper

The authors of a 2014 paper in Science have retracted it, after becoming aware that impurities in the chemicals they used for their experiments may have generated the apparent findings.

The paper, “Ammonia synthesis by N₂ and steam electrolysis in molten hydroxide suspensions of nanoscale Fe₂O₃,” has been cited 323 times, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science, earning it a “hot paper” designation. According to a summary of the work, “the protocol points to a way to produce ammonia from purely renewable resources.”

Here’s the retraction notice:

Drug abuse researcher faked data in grant applications, says Federal watchdog

A researcher at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC) in Amarillo plagiarized or faked data in four different federal U.S. grant applications, according to a new finding by the agency responsible for oversight of research integrity at the National Institutes of Health.

Rahul Dev Jayant, according to the Office of Research Integrity, “engaged in research misconduct by intentionally plagiarizing, falsifying, and/or fabricating data” in grant applications to the National Institute on Drug Abuse and National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism for work on alcoholism and opioid dependence. The applications were submitted late last year and early this year.

Jayant, the ORI found, plagiarized from papers by other authors in Nature Protocols and Nature Communications, falsified data in various figures, and fabricated nine bar graphs.

Getting medieval: Society says it is retracting 14 book reviews for plagiarism

More than a dozen book reviews by a history PhD student are under scrutiny for plagiarism concerns.

The reviews are published in the Al-Masāq Journal of the Medieval Mediterranean, a Society for the Medieval Mediterranean journal published by Taylor & Francis. The majority of the papers appear to be stolen whole works from other authors published in different historical journals.

The society posted a retraction notice today saying that the reviews had been removed, but at the time of this writing, all 14 are still available on publisher Taylor & Francis’s site, without any editor’s notes or other flags.

The society’s notice says:

Diabetes-COVID-19 paper retracted for lack of ethical approval

An allegation of plagiarism in a paper about Covid-19 in people with diabetes led to a retraction, but not for lifted text.

Earlier this year, the journal Diabetes Technology & Therapeutics, a Mary Ann Liebert title, published “No deleterious effect of lockdown due to COVID-19 pandemic on glycaemic control, measured by glucose monitoring, in adults with type 1 diabetes.” The author was Pilar Isabel Beato-Vi[accent over i]bora, of University Hospital Complex Badajoz, in Spain.

According to the article, the lockdown of Spain in response to the pandemic did not seem to make it harder for people with type 1 diabetes there to control their blood sugar.

The finding made at least one headline, in Medscape, which covered the paper when it appeared online in May.

But it also sounded alarms with at least one reader. As the retraction notice explains:

Study rating attractiveness of women with endometriosis is not yet retracted

Despite media reports announcing the retraction of a much-criticized study of whether women with endometriosis were more attractive than other women, the study has yet to be retracted by the journal.

Last week, several news outlets, picking up on a story in The Guardian, said the study, first published in 2012 in Fertility and Sterility, had been retracted.

The study, called “Attractiveness of women with rectovaginal endometriosis: a case-control study,” claimed to show that:

Paper earns expression of concern after author blames COVID-19 restrictions for not being able to find raw data

The pandemic ate our data.

A group of researchers in India whose findings in a 2015 paper evidently looked too good to be true have received an expression of concern because they claim Covid-19 restrictions have made it impossible to recover their raw data.

The article, “Possible role of P-glycoprotein in the neuroprotective mechanism of berberine in intracerebroventricular streptozotocin-induced cognitive dysfunction,” appeared in Psychopharmacology, a Springer Nature journal. The authors, led by Anil Kumar, were affiliated with the University Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Panjab University in Chandigarh.

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