Retraction Watch

Copy and euphemize: When ‘an honor mistake’ means plagiarism

Readers who have been with us for the long haul may remember we used to collect a catalog of our favorite euphemisms for plagiarism. That list died with the demise of Lab Times, for which we used to write a regular column (although we did write this piece a bit later) – but the magazine’s passing did not mark the end of journals that speak with mealy mouths.

The latest such euphemism to catch our eye comes from the Journal of STEPS for Humanities and Social Sciences, which in 2022 published a piece by a pair of authors in Iraq about trauma fiction.

“Trauma Reverberations: A Study of Selected Novels,” appeared in 2022, and was written by Intisar Rashid Khaleel and Raed Idrees Mahmood, both of Tikrit University.

According to the retraction notice:

Journal retracts 31 papers, bans authors and reviewers after losing its impact factor

A journal that lost its impact factor and spot in a major index this year has made good on a promise to retract dozens of papers with “compromised” peer review.

Genetika, a publication of the Serbian Genetics Society, did not receive an updated impact factor this year after Clarivate, the company behind the closely-watched but controversial metric, identified signs of citation stacking, a practice in which authors or journals seem to trade citations. Clarivate also dropped Genetika from its Web of Science index for failing to meet editorial quality criteria.

Clarivate’s actions followed a blog post by scientific sleuth Elisabeth Bik about what she called the “Iranian Plant Paper Mill, which included 31 papers published in Genetika.

‘A bit of a surprise’: Transportation officials pushed to retract archaeology article on work they funded

After bankrolling archeological work on a prehistoric site discovered during construction, a state department of transportation has successfully lobbied to retract an article about the researchers’ findings officials said were “published prematurely.”

The whole process was “a bit of a surprise” for the paper’s co-authors, said Logan Miller, one of the authors and an archeology professor at Illinois State University. He and lead author David Leslie both told Retraction Watch they stand by the article’s findings, but declined to comment further about the retraction.

Their research began in 2019, when the Connecticut Department of Transportation (CTDOT) wanted to replace a bridge in the town of Avon. When construction workers started digging into the old bridge’s foundations, however, they discovered thousands of ancient objects from the Paleoindians, the earliest known people to live in New England. CTDOT temporarily halted the work and contracted an archaeology firm to excavate the site.

BMJ retracts article about effect of UK sugar tax after authors find error

The British Medical Journal has retracted an article that found UK households bought 10% less sugar in the form of soft drinks after the government started taxing the manufacturers on the sugar in their products.

The authors of the paper found an error in their analysis when following up on the work, and republished a corrected version – with less flashy results – in BMJ Open.

The original article, “Changes in soft drinks purchased by British households associated with the UK soft drinks industry levy: controlled interrupted time series analysis,” appeared in March 2021. It has been cited 84 times in the scientific literature, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science, as well as by media outlets and by policy documents for the UK government and World Health Organization.

Weekend reads: NEJM’s racist past; ‘journal editors are like gods’; Harvard accused of pushing out misinformation researcher for criticizing Meta

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The week at Retraction Watch featured:

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to over 375. There are more than 45,000 retractions in The Retraction Watch Database — which is now part of Crossref. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains well over 200 titles. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately — or our list of top 10 most highly cited retracted papers? Or The Retraction Watch Mass Resignations List?

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

Wiley to stop using “Hindawi” name amid $18 million revenue decline

Wiley will cease using the beleaguered Hindawi brand name, the publisher announced on an earnings call Wednesday morning. Wiley plans to integrate Hindawi’s approximately 200 journals into the rest of its portfolio by the middle of next year.

Problems with Hindawi, the open access publisher that Wiley acquired in 2021, have cost the company $18 million in revenue in its latest financial quarter compared to the same quarter of last year, Wiley also disclosed. Hindawi’s journals have been overrun by paper mills and published “meaningless gobbledegook,” in the words of one sleuth, leading to thousands of retractions, journal closures and a major index delisting several titles.

In the current fiscal year, Wiley expects $35-40 million in lost revenue from Hindawi as it works to turn around journals with issues and retract articles, Matthew Kissner, Wiley’s interim president and CEO, said on the earnings call. The company expects revenue to begin to recover in its next fiscal year, he said.

Third retraction imminent for Harvard-affiliated sports research group

Several sports physicians at Harvard have earned two retractions and await another after publishing work based on “unreliable” survey data that was misrepresented in the papers.

The articles, “Running-related injuries in middle school cross-country runners: Prevalence and characteristics of common injuries” and “Prevalence and factors associated with bone stress injury in middle school runners,” were published in the journal of the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, PM&R, in 2021. The papers have been cited a total of 17 times since publication, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science.

Identical retraction notices issued in November this year state the decision followed “a joint review by the authors’ institutions which identified the dataset of this article to be unreliable and not accurately represented in the paper.” The institutions did not find the authors to be responsible for the problematic data, but recommended the papers be retracted, according to the notices. Several of the authors are affiliated with Harvard Medical School, which did not respond to a request for comment.

Cyberstalking pits Harvard professor against PubPeer

A deluge of bizarre and malicious emails targeting a professor at Harvard Medical School has left him reeling, while raising questions about the smear campaign’s use of a popular online forum where scientists publicly critique research.

Joseph Loscalzo sent a letter to PubPeer, the online forum, in September describing an “aggressive cyberstalking and harassment campaign” that “has relentlessly targeted myself and my colleagues” for many months with “misleading and often inaccurate comments.” He called PubPeer “a vehicle” for the attacks, alleging anonymous comments raising concerns about at least 15 papers were posted “in bad faith” and then used to defame and badger him in emails to other researchers, journals, and universities.

Loscalzo, physician-in-chief emeritus and former chair of the department of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, asked PubPeer to remove the offending comments and impose a six-month moratorium on anonymous posts about his work. The letter was obtained by Retraction Watch.

Weekend reads: Hijacked journals polluting an index; special issues take a hit; a data breach at a megajournal

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The week at Retraction Watch featured:

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

Elsevier investigating articles linked to controversial French researcher

The publisher Elsevier is investigating an unspecified number of articles by authors affiliated with a French research institute for concerns about “the appropriate conduct of research involving human participants.”

According to a “Publisher’s Note” that appeared November 9 in Elsevier’s New Microbes and New Infections, “concerns have been raised about a number of articles” published in the journal by researchers affiliated with the Institut Hospitalo-Universitaire Méditerranée Infection (IHU-MI) in Marseille.

The journal and Elsevier’s “Research Integrity and Publishing Ethics Centre of Expertise” are investigating the allegations “by confidentially consulting with the authors and, where necessary, liaising with the institution where the studies took place,” the note said. It continued:

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