Retraction Watch

Physics publisher retracting nearly 500 likely paper mill papers

A physics publisher is retracting 494 papers after an investigation “indicated that some papers may have been created, manipulated, and/or sold by a commercial entity” – aka a paper mill.

The vast majority – 463 articles – are from the Journal of Physics: Conference Series, while 21 are from IOP Conference Series: Materials Science & Engineering, and 10 are from IOP Conference Series: Earth & Environmental Science. A bit less than a third – 142 – are appearing today.

In a statement, Kim Eggleton, Head of Peer Review and Research Integrity at IOP Publishing, tells Retraction Watch:

Exclusive: NIH researcher resigned amid retractions, including Nature paper

A tenure-track investigator at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), a division of the National Institutes of Health, resigned in March, as questions mounted about her work, Retraction Watch has learned.

Jennifer Martinez has retracted at least two papers, including a 2016 Nature paper with the chair of the immunology department at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., and has another marked with an expression of concern.

The retraction is the first for Douglas R. Green of St. Jude, although he’s had a handful of corrections and two other papers he published in Nature have been questioned by scientists who couldn’t replicate the results.

After a postdoc at St. Jude, Martinez led an independent research program at NIEHS in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina since 2015, according to an online CV. She resigned from NIEHS in March and a federal research watchdog is looking into her work, a spokesperson told us:

Didier Raoult papers earn expressions of concern as criminal investigation gets underway

A leading microbiology society has issued expressions of concern for ~~four~~ six papers from a group in France led by the controversial scientist Didier Raoult, whose lab is under investigation by the University of Aix Marseille for “serious malfunctions.”

The move follows the release last month of a 157-page report by investigators related to France’s Health Ministry ~~the university~~ into Raoult’s research and news that a criminal investigation is underway.

As we and others have reported, Raoult was among the most prominent floggers of the notion that hydroxychloroquine could treat COVID-19. But while his studies of the drug might have influenced certain American politicians, they and other research from his group haven’t withstood the scrutiny of his peers.

He also has attempted to silence critics of his work, notably Elisabeth Bik, using legal threats and harassment.

Brain tumor researchers retract paper from Science journal

A detail from Fig. 6 of the now-retracted paper

A brain tumor researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, has retracted a paper from Science Translational Medicine, and is a co-author on an article that another journal is examining.

The problems in both papers, and several others with shared authors, came to light via comments on PubPeer by Elisabeth Bik and a pseudonymous commenter.

The Science Translational Medicine paper, “A subset of PARP inhibitors induces lethal telomere fusion in ALT-dependent tumor cells,” was published last May by a group led by Russell O. Pieper, director of basic science in the UCSF Brain Tumor Center and vice-chairman of the UCSF department of neurological surgery. The paper has been cited six times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science.

Chinese hospital sanctioned at least 35 scientists for research misconduct

Retractions are rolling along for numerous scientists affiliated with the Jining First People’s Hospital in Shandong, China, who were sanctioned in December for research misconduct such as tampering with data and fabricating research.

For example, one article, “Lycium barbarum polysaccharides alleviates oxidative damage induced by H₂O2 through down-regulating microRNA-194 in PC-12 and SH-SY5Y cells,” which appeared in Cellular Physiology and Biochemistry in 2018, was retracted on August 31.

The retraction notice stated:

Publisher says it will investigate allegations despite editor’s refusal

A journal whose editor who has refused to investigate strong claims of misconduct by an anonymous whistleblower appears to be investigating anyway following our coverage of the case. Meanwhile, the editor has found other ways to express his lack of concern for nonsense that may appear in the journal’s pages.

As we reported late last month, Guido Schmitz, the editor in chief of the International Journal of Materials Research has been rock-ribbed in his refusal to investigate claims of misconduct brought by the data sleuth Artemisia Stricta. The reason: Artemisia refused to divulge their identity – which, to Schmitz, evidently appears to be a more grievous sin than research misconduct itself.

Schmitz even went as far in emails to us to state that researchers are free to publish “bullshit and fiction.”

Nobel Prize winner Gregg Semenza retracts four papers

A Johns Hopkins researcher who shared the 2019 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology has retracted four papers from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) for concerns about images in the articles.

Gregg Semenza is “one of today’s preeminent researchers on the molecular mechanisms of oxygen regulation,” the work for which he shared the 2019 Nobel, according to Hopkins. But even before that, the pseudonymous Claire Francis began pointing out potential image duplications and other manipulations in Semenza’s work on PubPeer, as described in October 2020 by Leonid Schneider.

The four papers retracted yesterday are:

Weekend reads: A tale of deception; hydroxychloroquine in Australia; AI and ML to fix your papers — or write them

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

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

An editor on why he ignores anonymous whistleblowers – and why authors are free to publish ‘bullshit and fiction’
In four years, a psychosocial counselor co-authored seven papers on disparate medical topics. How?
When an independent replication isn’t really independent
Veterinary researcher banned from journal after fourth forthcoming retraction
Former NCI postdoc faked data, says federal watchdog

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 257. There are more than 35,000 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):

Former NCI postdoc faked data, says federal watchdog

A former postdoc at the National Cancer Institute faked 15 figures and a movie in grant applications, presentations, a paper, and an unpublished manuscript, according to a federal watchdog.

The finding from the U.S. Office of Research Integrity (ORI) comes more than a year after PLOS Biology retracted a 2016 paper and noted that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) had found that the postdoc, Ritankar Majumdar, committed misconduct and faked data in two figures.

The same day, the journal republished a revised version without the faked data. The retracted paper has been cited 107 times, 13 of those after it was retracted, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science. The revised paper — which included Majumdar as a first author — has been cited eight times.

The retraction notice stated that Majumdar agreed with the retraction but that he “disputes the NIH’s finding of misconduct.”

Veterinary researcher banned from journal after fourth forthcoming retraction

A veterinary researcher with three retracted papers and one marked with an expression of concern has another retraction on the way, Retraction Watch has learned.

The first retraction for Tereza Cristina Cardoso da Silva, of the University of São Paulo State in Brazil, came in 2019. As we reported at the time, the retracted paper, about herpesvirus infections in cattle, had reused an image from an earlier paper describing experiments with chicken cells. (We would apologize for the headline of that post, but we just couldn’t resist.)

Since then, Cardoso has lost two more papers for similarly reusing images of different species of animals, and had another article flagged with an expression of concern that mentions an institutional investigation into her work which culminated in a “Disciplinary Administrative Procedure.” A fourth retraction is in the works, per an email we were copied on from a journal editor to the whistleblower who identified another image reused between species.

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