Retraction Watch

Want to know whether that journal is scamming you? Introducing the Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker

Have you heard about hijacked journals?

Hijacked journals mimic legitimate journals by adopting their titles, ISSNs, and other metadata. Usually, hijacked journals mirror legitimate journals without permission from the original journal. In rare instances, publishers will buy rights to a legitimate journal but continue the publication under considerably less stringent publishing protocols and without clearly noting to the reader the change in ownership or publication standards (sometimes known as “cloned” journals).

Scholars can be duped into publishing in hijacked journals – many of which require fees – by offers of fast publication and indexing in databases such as Scopus; being indexed in such databases is viewed by many universities and governments as a mark of legitimacy. Even the WHO’s COVID literature database has been fooled.

We’re hoping to put an end to that sort of thing: Introducing the Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker.

Weekend reads: Female driver stereotypes; ‘stealth research’; AI comes to fake scientific images

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The week at Retraction Watch featured:

Journal about ‘ambient intelligence’ retracts more than 50 papers at once
The “internet may be a challenging venue”: Biomedical engineering group up to four retractions
Drug researchers in Russia have four papers subjected to expressions of concern
‘Inadvertently published’ paper by pharma employee retracted almost a year later

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 227. There are more than 34,000 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):

‘Inadvertently published’ paper by pharma employee retracted almost a year later

A Takeda employee has lost a 2021 paper that the journal says it “inadvertently published.”

The article, “Seasonal and Secular Periodicities Identified in the Dynamics of US FDA Medical Devices (1976–2020): Portends Intrinsic Industrial Transformation and Independence of Certain Crises,” appeared in Therapeutic Innovation & Regulatory Science. It has yet to be cited, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science

The retraction notice from a few days ago says, in full:

Drug researchers in Russia have four papers subjected to expressions of concern

A psychiatry journal has issued expressions of concern for four papers by a group of researchers in Russia after questions surfaced about the integrity of the data.

The first author on all of the papers was Ilya D. Ionov, of the Centre On Theoretical Problems in Physical and Chemical Pharmacology, part of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow. The co-authors are affiliated with Timpharm LTD, a drug company without much in the way of an online presence.

The papers appeared in Psychopharmacology, a Springer Nature title.

Here’s the notice for “Anticataleptic activity of nicotine in rats: involvement of the lateral entorhinal cortex,” which Psychopharmacology published in 2021:

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:

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