Retraction Watch

Spider researcher uses legal threats, public records requests to prevent retractions

The case of Jonathan Pruitt, a spider researcher suspected of fabricating data in potentially dozens of studies, keeps getting weirder.

Pruitt, according to our count, now has six retractions. Currently associate professor and Canada 150 Research Chair at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, he made a name for himself by providing other scientists with field data — much of which now appears to be unreliable.

Among the latest developments in the case is a correction in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, for a 2016 article titled “Behavioural hypervolumes of spider communities predict community performance and disbandment.” That followed this April expression of concern, which read:

Apparent duplication from anesthesiology journal puts heart paper into intensive care

A heart journal has issued an expression of concern about a 2017 paper which looks suspiciously like a 2016 article by some of the same researchers that appeared in an anesthesiology publication.

The 2017 paper, “Efficacy of prophylactic dexmedetomidine in preventing postoperative junctional ectopic tachycardia after pediatric cardiac surgery,” was written by a group led by Doaa Mohamed El Amrousy, of Tanta University Hospital in Egypt.

Several months earlier, El Amrousy and two of his co-authors, Nagat S. El-Shmaa and Wael El Feky, published a similar article in the Annals of Cardiac Anesthesia, titled “The efficacy of pre-emptive dexmedetomidine versus amiodarone in preventing postoperative junctional ectopic tachycardia in pediatric cardiac surgery.”

How similar? Apparently too much.

Top chemistry journal retracts paper for faked data

A leading chemistry journal has retracted a 2019 paper by a pair of researchers in Switzerland after determining that it contained fabricated data.

The article, “The manganese(I)‐catalyzed asymmetric transfer hydrogenation of ketones: disclosing the macrocylic privilege,” was written by Alessandro Passera and Antonio Mezzetti, of the ETH Zurich in Switzerland. It appeared in Angewandte Chemie International Edition.

Readers might remember Angewandte Chemie from this post in June about a controversial article it published — and then removed — in the wake of a mass outcry that prompted much of its editorial board to resign and led to the suspension of two of its editors. Fallout from the scandal — in the form of “the journal’s interim Editor-in-Chief Committee” — is evident in the retraction notice, which reads:

Did a journal retract your paper on homeopathy? Meet the journal that will publish your complaint

A homeopathy journal that Elsevier dropped in the wake of concerns about excessive self-citation appears to have carved out a new niche for itself: self-pity.

In 2016, Homeopathy lost its slot on Thomson Reuters’s (now Clarivate’s) influential journal rankings list after an analysis found that more than 70% of citations in the papers it published were of papers it published. That led Elsevier to cut the journal loose — although it remains in business under the umbrella of Thieme, and has since earned its impact factor back. (For more on why that’s important to journals, see this story.)

Part of Homeopathy’s mission under new ownership, it seems, is to criticize journals that have spurned its contributors. Well, one journal, anyway.

Hydroxychloroquine, push-scooters, and COVID-19: A journal gets stung, and swiftly retracts

This may be the scientific publishing version of “the operation was a success, but the patient died.”

The retraction of a Trojan horse paper on the novel coronavirus has called into question the validity of another article in the same journal which found that hydroxychloroquine is effective against Covid-19.

The sting article, “SARS-CoV-2 was Unexpectedly Deadlier than Push-scooters: Could Hydroxychloroquine be the Unique Solution?” — was the brainchild of graduate student Mathieu Rebeaud, aka “Willard Oodendijk” and Florian Cova, of “The Institute for Quick and Dirty Science” (no, not really) in Switzerland. Their goal: to highlight a concerning paper in the Asian Journal of Medicine and Health, which they and others suspect of being a predatory publication — one that is happy to take money to publish anything, while pretending to perform peer review.

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

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:

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:

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