It’s become a sort of Retraction Watch Mad Libs: Author writes a paper that is so far, far, out of the mainstream. Maybe it argues that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS. Or that vaccines cause autism. Truth squads swarm over the paper, taking to blogs and Twitter to wonder, in the exasperated tone of those who … Continue reading Journal retracts creationist paper “because it was published in error”
A journal has retracted two 2014 papers after the editors discovered the authors used data from other research groups without permission. The papers, both published in the same issue of Cell Biochemistry and Biophysics and retracted in May, suffered from similar issues—the authors published data that was not theirs. The authors are all based at … Continue reading Journal retracts two papers by authors who lifted others’ data
The week at Retraction Watch featured the story of a graduate student who fought back after being caught in the middle of a fraud case, and the retraction of a hotly debated paper from Nature Cell Biology. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
A publisher in the Netherlands has retracted 13 published studies and withdrawn 52 that were under consideration (but not yet published) after learning that someone illegally accessed its workflows to add fake authors and manipulate text. According to Seyyed Mohammad Miri, the founder, CEO, and managing director of Kowsar Publishing, the 13 retracted papers all included extra authors … Continue reading Scientific publisher hacked, affecting 65 papers
A researcher with four retracted papers has left his former institution in Malaysia, according to an official at the university. In March, we reported on the retractions of two studies in Environmental Geochemistry and Health co-authored by Muhammad Aqeel Ashraf. Both papers were pulled citing a “compromised” peer review process. The now-retracted work was carried … Continue reading Researcher notches fourth retraction, has left university
A group of authors has earned two retractions for a pair of papers on which they had “severe conflicts of author sequences,” according to the retraction note. All of the authors were involved in a recent spate of compromised peer review that hit Springer journals back in August. Among the 64 retracted papers this summer, one … Continue reading Authors retract two papers for “severe conflicts of author sequences”
A journal has retracted an entire special issue over concerns the guest-edited papers underwent a “compromised” peer review process. In a supplement to Volume 337 Issue 1 of Annals of Operations Research, 23 papers were retracted with the same statement: The Editor-in-Chief and the publisher have retracted this article. The article was submitted to be … Continue reading ‘We authors paid a heavy price’: Journal retracts all 23 articles in special issue
A Springer Nature journal retracted 34 papers earlier this month, including, ironically enough, one on how to detect fake news, which appeared in special guest-edited issues hacked by publication cheats. Special issues have emerged over the past few years as particularly vulnerable to paper mills. Last March, we reported that Wiley was taking a $9 … Continue reading Springer Nature journal pulls nearly three dozen papers from special issues
Each year since 2013, we put together a roundup of the 10 most-read stories we published on the blog over the past 12 months. This list doesn’t have some of what you might think are the biggest stories of the year—Stanford president Marc Tessier-Lavigne’s resignation and retractions, allegations of fraud against Harvard Business School professor … Continue reading The top ten stories at Retraction Watch in 2023
Over the past year, amid announcements of thousands of retractions, journal closures and a major index delisting several titles, executives at the troubled publisher Hindawi have at various times mentioned a “new retraction process” for investigating and pulling papers “at scale.” The publisher has declined to provide details – until now. So far in 2023, … Continue reading Hindawi reveals process for retracting more than 8,000 paper mill articles