Retraction Watch

Another ivermectin-COVID-19 paper is retracted

A paper on the potential use of ivermectin to treat Covid-19 has been retracted for a litany of flaws, joining at least 10 other articles on the therapy some liked to promote without evidence to fall.

The article was part of a special issue of Toxicology Reports on Covid-19 that has received an expression of concern; six of the eight articles still have EoCs. Two, including one “Why are we vaccinating children against COVID-19?,” have now been retracted.

The newly retracted article, “Use of ivermectin in the treatment of Covid-19: A pilot trial,” was written by a group from Brazil and the United States and appeared in March 2021.

According to the retraction notice:

‘A terrifying experience’: A team of researchers does the right thing when they find an error

Mitch Brown was preparing last August to launch a follow-up study to a 2021 paper on coalitions when he found something in his computer coding that sent his stomach to his shoes.

As Brown, an experimental psychologist at the University of Arkansas, recalled for us:

Journal retracts C-section paper with ‘impossible’ data

An ob-gyn journal has retracted a clinically influential 2016 paper on the use of steroids in women undergoing cesarean delivery, citing questions about the data.

The article, “Antenatal corticosteroid administration before elective caesarean section at term to prevent neonatal respiratory morbidity: a randomized controlled trial,” appeared in the European Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology and Reproductive Biology (EJOG), and was written by a group at Cairo University in Egypt led by Adel Nada.

The study purported to involve nearly 1,300 women – making it the largest analysis of women receiving steroids for the indication in the trial. But Ben Mol, an ob-gyn researcher and data sleuth at Monash Medical Centre in Australia, noted that the paper – which has been cited 32 times, per Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science – was based on a thesis by the second author, M.M. Shafeek. Something in the two articles caught Mol’s eye, he told Retraction Watch:

Weekend reads: ‘The science crisis’; Peru president plagiarism probe; does a Nature cover help or hurt citations?

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The week at Retraction Watch featured:

Elsevier retracts papers when it realizes one of the authors hid fact he was guest editor of issue
UPenn prof retracts three papers for ‘substantive questions’

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 223. There are more than 33,000 retractions in our database — which powers retraction alerts in EndNote, LibKey, Papers, and Zotero. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately — or our list of top 10 most highly cited retracted papers?

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

UPenn prof retracts three papers for ‘substantive questions’

A pharmacology researcher at the University of Pennsylvania is up to four retractions for problems with the data in his articles after a neurology journal pulled three papers late last month.

According to the Journal of Neurotrauma, a Mary Ann Liebert title, William Armstead – who holds a research professorship in Anesthesiology and Critical Care at Penn [please see an update on this post] – requested the retraction of three articles while informing that, in his words:

substantive questions have arisen regarding the findings, presentation and conclusions reported in the paper that could not be answered with available source data.

But beyond that, Armstead – who has not responded to a request for comment from Retraction Watch – left things a bit of a mystery.

Elsevier retracts papers when it realizes one of the authors hid fact he was guest editor of issue

A researcher who guest edited an issue has lost two papers after a journal’s publisher discovered that he had changed his name on the manuscripts following submission.

The retraction notices in Computers in Industry, an Elsevier title, for “Evaluation of the green supply chain management practices: A novel neutrosophic approach” and “An integrated neutrosophic ANP and VIKOR method for achieving sustainable supplier selection: A case study in importing field” read the same way:

Weekend reads: Surgeon on trial over experiments; hydroxychloroquine-promoting doctor reprimanded; questions about concussion research

Would you consider a donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance.

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

Authors retract second Majorana paper from Nature
Dermatology journal calls for investigation into Bordeaux-INSERM work
Nanotech group up to nine retractions
Chemistry paper retracted from Science
Journal issues 55 expressions of concern at once

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 221. There are more than 33,000 retractions in our database — which powers retraction alerts in EndNote, LibKey, Papers, and Zotero. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately — or our list of top 10 most highly cited retracted papers?

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

Journal issues 55 expressions of concern at once

The journal Cureus has issued expressions of concern for a whopping 55 papers whose authorship has come into question.

The articles, including a couple like this one on COVID-19, were apparently submitted as part of an effort by Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, in Saudi Arabia, to pad the publishing resumes of its medical students – and perhaps the school’s own metrics – who targeted Cureus for reasons that aren’t now clear.

Here’s the notice for “Sylvian Fissure Lipoma: An Unusual Etiology of Seizures in Adults,” which the journal published in January 2022:

Chemistry paper retracted from Science

Science has retracted a 2020 paper which hinted at the future of eco-friendly pharmaceuticals after concluding that the data had been manipulated.

The article, “Asymmetric remote C–H borylation of aliphatic amides and esters with a modular iridium catalyst,” came from a team anchored by Masaya Sawamura, of Hokkaido University, in Sapporo.

Funding for the study – which has been cited 57 times, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science – came from the Japanese government and the Uehara Memorial Foundation. Hokkaido is now investigating, Science said.

[Please see an update on this post.]

The paper received some attention, including this article in Chemistry & Engineering News which described the results this way:

Nanotech group up to nine retractions

A group of nanotechnology researchers in Iran is up to nine retractions after losing four papers in a go for problematic figures.

The work was led by Abolfazl Akbarzadeh, a medicinal chemist at Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, who has spent time as a visiting professor at Boston University and UCLA. Commenters on PubPeer including Elisabeth Bik and “Hoya camphorifolia” have raised questions about the papers, with posts dating back to November 2020.

The latest retractions involve articles that appeared in Artificial Cells, Nanomedicine, and Biotechnology, a Taylor & Francis title. Evidently, the papers appear to have had…artificial data.

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