Retraction Watch

Agriculture researcher up to 15 retractions for fake peer review

Christos Damalas, an agriculture researcher at Democritus University of Thrace, has had more papers retracted from Elsevier journals for fake peer review reports, giving him a total of 15.

The three most recent retractions appear, as did some previously, in Science of the Total Environment. Damalas also had papers retracted from Chemosphere and Land Use Policy in October. We reported on nine of his retractions last October. (For background on how fake peer review works, read this.)

Here’s a typical notice (the repeated “request of” appears in the three from Science of the Total Environment):

A building consultant rigs peer review

The construction industry in New York City is notorious for rigged bids, but rigged peer review?

A Queens, NY, building consultant has lost four papers for forging — or having had forged — the peer reviews of his manuscripts. (For background on how this works, read this.)

Faruque Hossain’s articles appeared in a variety of engineering-based Elsevier publications between 2017 and 2019. Hossain is listed as being the owner of an outfit called Green Globe Technology Inc., which is based in Flushing.

Here’s the notice for “Green science: Decoding dark photon structure to produce clean energy,” which Energy Reports published in 2018:

Hydroxychloroquine-COVID-19 study did not meet publishing society’s “expected standard”

The paper that appears to have triggered the Trump administration’s obsession with hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for infection with the novel coronavirus has received a statement of concern from the society that publishes the journal in which the work appeared.

The April 3, 2020, notice, from the International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents, states that the March 20 article, “Hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin as a treatment of Covid-19: results of an open-label non-randomized clinical trial”

Former star cancer researcher who sued his university for discrimination notches eighth retraction

Jasti Rao, who once earned $700,000 a year at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria and was named the first “Peorian of the Year” before a misconduct investigation put an end to his time there, has now lost eight papers.

Rao’s case is among the more colorful that we’ve covered. A highly-regarded cancer specialist, Rao was caught up in a morass of misdeeds, including not only plagiarism and manipulation of data but gambling and behavior tantamount to extortion of his employees. As we reported in 2018:

Weekend reads: COVID-19 and peer review; blaming a spell-checker for plagiarism; the fastest retracting country

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.

Sending thoughts to our readers and wishing them the best in this uncertain time.

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

A retraction by a formerly high-profile researcher for “inadvertently misidentified” images;
the tale of the zombie papers;
recognition for a sleuth.

Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

A snake bites once, but its picture is used twice

For some people, a venomous snake is a venomous snake — and evidently, some of those people include journal editors.

The authors of a 2019 case report describing the unfortunate case of an African farmer killed by the bite of a lethal snake have lost the article because the mug shot of the reptilian culprit didn’t match its description in the paper.

The paper, “Severe Viperidae envenomation complicated by a state of shock, acute kidney injury, and gangrene presenting late at the emergency department: a case report,” appeared in BMC Emergency Medicine, a Springer Nature title.

“We thank Dr. Elisabeth Bik for drawing the irregularities to the authors’ attention.” A sleuth earns recognition.

A trio of researchers in Argentina is up to three retractions, and may well lose even more papers, for doctoring their images. And, in an unusual move, one of the leading data sleuths is getting credit for her work helping to out the problematic figures.

One article, “Apocynin-induced nitric oxide production confers antioxidant protection in maize leaves,” appeared in 2009 in the Journal of Plant Physiology, published by Elsevier. The authors were affiliated with the Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata.

As the retraction notice states:

Zombie papers: Why do papers by the most prolific fraudster in history keep getting cited?

It’s a bit like a slugger crediting Barry Bonds for help with his homerun swing. An anesthesiology journal has retracted a 2018 paper that cited three retracted papers by Yoshitaka Fujii, the record-holder for most retractions by a single author.

As we’ve written before, journals had a spotty record in reacting to the Fujii scandal, which peaked in 2012. And the latest case involves a bit of that indifference — but other negligence, as well.

The article in question, “Priming with different doses of Metoclopramide preceded by tourniquet alleviates propofol induced pain: a comparative study with lidocaine,” appeared in 2018 in the Egyptian Journal of Anaesthesia (EJA). Three of the citations were of papers by Fujii, although the article had other failings, too.

A tale of one exceedingly clear retraction notice, and two nonexistent ones

In the market for an admirably clear and concise retraction notice? Look no further!

A researcher in China has lost one — well, maybe two, more on that in a moment — 2015 articles for falsification of data and other misconduct. And one of the journals he tried to dupe is having none of it.

The papers appeared in Tissue Engineering, which is published by Mary Ann Liebert. A related, but yet unretracted, article was in the Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Medicine, a Springer title. The focus of the case is Xing Wei, of the, National Engineering Research Center of Genetic Medicine at Jinan University, in Guangzhou.

Here’s the retraction notice:

Former UCSD prof who resigned amid investigation into China ties retracts paper for ‘inadvertently misidentified’ images

Kang Zhang, a formerly high-profile geneticist at the University of California, San Diego, who resigned his post last July amidst an investigation into undisclosed ties to China, has retracted a paper because some of its images were taken from other researchers’ work.

The paper, “Impaired lipid metabolism by age-dependent DNA methylation alterations accelerates aging,” was submitted to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) last fall, months after Zhang’s resignation. One of Zhang’s fellow corresponding authors, Jian-Kang Zhu, used the journal’s “Contributed Submissions” process, in which “An NAS member may contribute up to two of her or his own manuscripts for publication in PNAS each year.”

PNAS published the paper on February 6 of this year. But on February 18, authors of a different paper, in Aging Cell, sent the editors of PNAS a letter, writing:

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