Former PhD student loses two papers for forging co-author’s name

Frank Rademakers

The journal of a national scientific society in Europe has retracted a pair of papers after a heart specialist in Belgium complained that his name had been included on the manuscripts with neither his knowledge nor permission. 

The articles appeared in the official journal of the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts: Section of Medical Sciences this July.

Both were led by Sofija Popevska and included a single co-author: Frank Rademakers, a cardiologist at KU Leuven. One was titled “The Left Ventricular Pressure-Volume Area and Stroke Work in Porcine Model of Ascending Compared to Descending Thoracic Aorta Stenosis Creating a Chronic Early Vs. Late Left Ventricular Afterload Increase.” The other, “Prolonged Asynchronous Left Ventricular Isovolumic Relaxation Constant in Ascending Compared to Descending Thoracic Aortic Stenosis for Chronic Early Left Ventricular Afterload and Late Left Ventricular Afterload Increase.”

The problem, as Rademakers told us, was that he’d had nothing to do with the work. 

Continue reading Former PhD student loses two papers for forging co-author’s name

Guest post: What happened when we tried to get a paper claiming ‘billions of lives are potentially at risk’ from COVID-19 vaccines retracted

In February, the editor-in-chief of Food and Chemical Toxicology published an editorial calling for “Papers on potential toxic effects of COVID-19 vaccines.” Following this call, in April 2022, the journal – no stranger to Retraction Watch readers –  published an article titled “Innate immune suppression by SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccinations: The role of G-quadruplexes, exosomes, and MicroRNAs.” 

At more than 16,000 words and more than 200 references, the article was submitted on February 9th and accepted on April 8th. It claims that “billions of lives are potentially at risk” with Covid-19 vaccines. 

Such an important statement should be supported by facts. But this is not at all the case. And yet the paper has been shared more than 45,000 times on social media, in ways that decrease trust in science and the COVID-19 vaccine, despite the robust evidence that it is both safe and efficient.

Continue reading Guest post: What happened when we tried to get a paper claiming ‘billions of lives are potentially at risk’ from COVID-19 vaccines retracted

Weekend reads: ‘Who Cares About Publication Integrity?’; revealing a Galileo forgery; repeat predatory journal authors

Our co-founder Ivan Oransky turns 50 today, and we know what he’d really like for his birthday: Would you consider a donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance.

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 254. 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):

Continue reading Weekend reads: ‘Who Cares About Publication Integrity?’; revealing a Galileo forgery; repeat predatory journal authors

On second thought: journal reverses course on paper it agreed to retract last year

A Springer Nature journal has decided not to retract a paper it had been investigating for plagiarism since receiving allegations in January 2021. The decision came 1.5 years since the editor-in-chief apparently agreed the paper should be retracted, and just a few days after we reported on the case. 

Systems engineer Paola Di Maio notified Springer Nature in January 2021 that the article, “Robotic Standard Development Life Cycle in Action,” published in the Journal of Intelligent & Robotic Systems, described a methodology she had developed without crediting her work. As we wrote in our post on Friday, Aug. 5th: 

Continue reading On second thought: journal reverses course on paper it agreed to retract last year

‘It’s time to devise a more efficient solution’: Science editor in chief wants to change the retraction process

Holden Thorp

On the heels of a high-profile retraction that followed deep investigations by the Science news team, Holden Thorp, the editor in chief of the journal, says it’s time to improve the process of correcting the scientific record.

In an editorial published today, Thorp, a former university provost, describes the often time-consuming and frustrating process involving journals, universities, and government agencies that are often at odds, or at least have different priorities. Based on the experience of what can feel like gridlock, he calls for breaking the process into two stages:

Continue reading ‘It’s time to devise a more efficient solution’: Science editor in chief wants to change the retraction process

Imagine learning you’re an author on a paper after it’s retracted for plagiarism

Dragan Lambić

An education researcher whose colleague added his name without his knowledge to a paper he didn’t contribute to is now dealing with another problem: The paper has been retracted for plagiarism. 

And now he’s suing the publisher – not over the retraction, but for allowing the authorship forgery.

Dragan Lambić, of the University of Novi Sad in Serbia, only learned his name was on the article in question, published in a Serbian education journal in 2020, when he received an email this January informing him that the paper would be retracted. 

Continue reading Imagine learning you’re an author on a paper after it’s retracted for plagiarism

White House official banned from publishing in PNAS following retraction

Jane Lubchenco

Jane Lubchenco, the deputy director for climate and environment in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, has been banned from publishing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) and from other NAS activities for five years.

The move, first reported by Axios, comes ten months after PNAS retracted a paper that Lubchenco had edited despite the fact that one of the authors was her brother-in-law and that she had been his PhD advisor. The paper contained an error, but PNAS editor in chief May Berenbaum told us at the time that the conflict of interest would have been enough to prompt a retraction.

In January of this year, the American Accountability Foundation, which calls itself “a charitable and educational organization that conducts non-partisan governmental oversight research and fact-checking so Americans can hold their elected leaders accountable” and has also been called a “slime machine targeting dozens of Biden nominees” by The New Yorker, asked the NAS to investigate. Thomas Jones, the AAF’s founder, wrote, in part:

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A tale of (3)2 retraction notices: On publishers, paper mill products, and the sleuths that find them

Should publishers acknowledge the work of sleuths when their work has led to retractions?

We were prompted to pose the question by a recent retraction from International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics of a 2021 paper. The notice reads:

Continue reading A tale of (3)2 retraction notices: On publishers, paper mill products, and the sleuths that find them

Weekend reads: Underage sex comic study removed following outrage; postdoc claims retaliation; plagiarism in COVID-19 papers

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

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 254. 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):

Continue reading Weekend reads: Underage sex comic study removed following outrage; postdoc claims retaliation; plagiarism in COVID-19 papers

Doing the right thing: Harvard researchers retract Cell paper after work contradicts finding

Corresponding author Thomas Look

The authors of a 2020 paper in Cell are earning plaudits after they retracted the study following the publication of an article last year that contradicted their earlier findings.

The paper, “Allosteric Activators of Protein Phosphatase 2A Display Broad Antitumor Activity Mediated by Dephosphorylation of MYBL2,” purported to show that a particular compound could be useful in animal studies because it did not have some of the off-target activity of other compounds. It has been cited 45 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science.

But as the retraction notice says, a paper published last year in The EMBO Journal by Jakob Nilsson and Gianmatteo Vit of the University of Copenhagen and colleagues found that wasn’t true:

Continue reading Doing the right thing: Harvard researchers retract Cell paper after work contradicts finding