Retraction Watch

The “internet may be a challenging venue”: Biomedical engineering group up to four retractions

A group of biomedical engineering researchers has lost four papers because they appear to be recycling their images from other papers.

The retractions for the group, from Banaras Hindu University in India, span papers published between 2011 and 2014. The retractions began in 2020, after anonymous PubPeer commenters pointed out the similarities between images. The four papers have been cited a total of 140 times, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science.

The latest paper to be retracted, “Alleviation of glutamate-mediated neuronal insult by piroxicam in rodent model of focal cerebral ischemia: a possible mechanism of GABA agonism,” was originally published in Springer Nature’s Journal of Physiology and Biochemistry in 2014. It has been cited 12 times.

According to the retraction notice:

Journal about ‘ambient intelligence’ retracts more than 50 papers at once

Perhaps the Journal of Ambient Intelligence and Humanized Computing needs to look for a different kind of smarts.

The journal – a Springer Nature title – has just retracted 51 papers. The episode is the latest in a string of high-volume retractions by major publishers of papers included in special issues. In at least five cases, editors have claimed that their peer review processes were scammed by what some have called rogue editors.

All of the Journal of Ambient Intelligence and Humanized Computing retractions begin this way:

Weekend reads: Dogs removed from controversial research facility; ‘an unacceptable idea’; ‘blind spots on western blots’

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

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

Journal retracts paper listed on authorship for sale site following Retraction Watch report
How citation cartels give ‘strategic scholars’ an advantage: A simple model
Kale ‘miracle food’ paper retracted for being ‘word salad’
After we tried to correct claims about ‘deadly’ water filters in Flint, we were accused of scientific misconduct—and that was just the beginning
Failed to properly register your trial? Just use a different study’s number. Actually, don’t.

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 227. 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):

Failed to properly register your trial? Just use a different study’s number. Actually, don’t.

Researchers in China have lost a 2019 paper on sedation in people undergoing cardiac surgery after readers complained that the authors had failed to properly register the trial.

The paper, “Effect of Perioperative Administration of Dexmedetomidine on Delirium After Cardiac Surgery in Elderly Patients: a Double-Blinded, Multi-Center, Randomized Study,” appeared in Clinical Interventions in Aging, a Dove Press title.

Last year, a commenter on PubPeer flagged the article, which has been cited 26 times, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science:

After we tried to correct claims about ‘deadly’ water filters in Flint, we were accused of scientific misconduct—and that was just the beginning

The Sept. 10, 2019 PBS article accompanying the FRONTLINE documentary “Deadly Water” was topped by a provocative headline: “The EPA Says Flint’s Water is Safe — Scientists Aren’t So Sure.” The PBS story relied on a study of adverse health outcomes for people given point-of-use (POU) water filters during the Flint Federal Emergency.

We were astonished. Several of us worked closely with residents to first expose the problems with lead and Legionella that defined the Flint Water Crisis. We were supportive of later humanitarian efforts to provide Flint residents with the free point of use (POU) lead filters, since they effectively remove lead from water used for drinking and cooking. These off-the-shelf water filters are routinely used in about a third of U.S. homes, so we were mystified as to how they could have wrought such devastation when deployed in Flint.

Kale ‘miracle food’ paper retracted for being ‘word salad’

Kale may be a superfood, but for one paper on the vegetable, Twitter proved to be its Kryptonite. We’ll explain.

Last November, Food Science & Nutrition published an article titled “Kale (Brassica oleracea var. sabellica) as miracle food with special reference to therapeutic and nutraceuticals perspective.”

How miraculous? As the authors, from Government College University in Faisalabad, Pakistan, wrote:

How citation cartels give ‘strategic scholars’ an advantage: A simple model

Sincere scholars work to expand society’s knowledge and understanding. They cite all the relevant research, even that produced by those they disagree with or personally dislike. They encourage debate. For the sincere scholar, a citation is a responsibility, and proper and thorough citations demonstrate research quality.

For the strategic scholar, a citation is an asset to be used career-advantageously. As a certain former governor of the State of Illinois once said about his responsibility to fill an open US senate position, “I’ve got this thing and it’s (expletive) golden. I’m not just giving it up for (expletive) nothing.”

Strategic scholars cite the work of their friends, working colleagues, those they agree with, and those who reference them. Indeed, the most successful career-strategic scholars operate in groups of like-minded colleagues in which they promote each other’s careers together—citation cartels. They draw attention to that other work which supports their own and their careers.

Journal retracts paper listed on authorship for sale site following Retraction Watch report

An Elsevier journal has retracted a paper that was listed by a firm claiming to sell authorships months after we reported on the site.

On Sept. 7, 2021, we published a story about the company, Teziran. On Sept. 14, pseudonymous sleuth Artemisia Stricta wrote to Ioannis Ieropoulos, the editor of Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments, which had published one of eight papers listed by Teziran as “ready for acceptance”:

Weekend reads: Why was a paper’s acceptance rescinded?; kinder peer review; plagiarism in a plagiarism atonement essay

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

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

Journal retracts C-section paper with ‘impossible’ data
‘A terrifying experience’: A team of researchers does the right thing when they find an error
Another ivermectin-COVID-19 paper is retracted
A college that doesn’t exist. An email address that goes dark. Who wrote this paper?
‘Conclusions related to vaccine safety are not validated’: COVID-19 spike protein paper retracted

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 226. 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):

‘Conclusions related to vaccine safety are not validated’: COVID-19 spike protein paper retracted

It took about five months, but a virology journal has retracted a paper on the microbe that causes COVID-19 after tagging it with an expression of concern back in December.

As we reported then, the paper, “SARS–CoV–2 Spike Impairs DNA Damage Repair and Inhibits V(D)J Recombination In Vitro,” was a hit with vaccine skeptics who used the article to buttress their claims that Covid vaccines are unsafe.

The paper, which appeared in MDPI’s Viruses, generated enough buzz on social media and in the news to make it into the top 5% of all articles tracked by Altmetric. This Week in Virology, a podcast on, well, virology, devoted part of an episode of the show to deconstructing the findings.

But as the journal noted last year:

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