Don’t feel so bad, The Aging Male: It happens to lots of journals

The Aging Male (the journal, not the demographic) is retracting a 2013 paper by a group of Chinese researchers who’d published the same work — more or less — in a Chinese title.

The article, “Testosterone therapy improves psychological distress and health-related quality of life in Chinese men with symptomatic late-onset hypogonadism patients,” came from a group at Peking University People’s Hospital, in Beijing.

But as the retraction notice explains:

Purloined dissertation on stroke ends in retraction for Iranian group

The International Journal of Neuroscience, an Informa Healthcare journal, has retracted a paper it published earlier this year after learning that the article was the doctoral work of another scientist — not listed among the authors — that had appeared previously in a Persian-language journal.

The retraction notice, admirably thorough, explains what happened with the paper:

Duplicate publication of headache paper earns Expression of Concern, erratum

A 2003 paper is now subject to an Expression of Concern after its author reused a lot of its material in a 2007 paper.

Here’s the Expression of Concern for “New therapeutic target in primary headaches – blocking the CGRP receptor” by Lars Edvinsson of the University of Copehagen:

Error scuppers paper on treatment for liver fibrosis

Pharmaceutical Biology has retracted a 2012 paper by a group of liver researchers from China after the discovery of an error that evidently invalidated the results in the paper.

The article, “Antifibrotic effects of protocatechuic aldehyde on experimental liver fibrosis,” purported to show that

protocatechuic aldehyde, the major degradation of phenolic acids … has potentially conferring antifibrogenic effects.

In other words, the compound appears to prevent the formation of liver fibroids.

But it doesn’t — at least, not according to the study — as the retraction notice explains:

Double dipping on exercise/cardiac risk paper leads to retraction

The International Journal of Neuroscience has retracted a September 2005 paper by a group from Turkey who published the same article in the same month in a different journal.

The research involved looking at concentrations of blood fats in athletes and less vigorous folk, “and to examine the risks of cardiovascular diseases.”It found that:

… medium and high level of exercises did not cause significant differences in lipid and lipoprotein levels, but the sex differences were very pronounced” with “lipid and lipoprotein profile of female subjects was found to be better than that of males”.

Here’s the notice:

Smoking cessation paper pulled for “almost word-for-word” similarity to authors’ previous work

The Journal of Maternal-Fetal & Neonatal Medicine has retracted a 2008 article on smoking cessation by a group from Sweden which they had published not many months before in a different journal.

The retracted paper was titled “Quitting smoking is perceived to have an effect on somatic health among pregnant and non-pregnant women.” The authors, from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, had published a similar paper — “Perception of Smoking-Related Health Consequences among Pregnant and Non-Pregnant Women” — in the American Journal of Addictions in 2007.

How similar?

Duplication leads to retraction of 1997 paper on heart disease genes

A top cardiology researcher, Robert Hegele, of the Robarts Research Institute at the University of Western Ontario, has retracted a 15-year-old review after editors were made aware that it was “very similar” to another of his reviews.

Here’s the December 2012 notice for the paper, which has been cited 23 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge:

Retraction for prostate cancer paper duplication leaves authors penitent, “happy”

Perhaps fittingly in today’s age of sensitive feelings, the typical reaction to a retraction (per the notices, at least) is apology. But bliss?

Expert Opinion on Investigational Drugs has a new one in the annals of penitence. At issue is a 2010 paper titled “Horizon scanning for novel therapeutics for the treatment of prostate cancer,” by Dieletta Bianchini. Turns out the authors had published the same (or nearly so) paper two months earlier in a different journal. Here’s the notice:

Retraction count grows to 35 for scientist who faked emails to do his own peer review

Hyung-In Moon

Hyung-In Moon, the South Korean plant compound researcher who made up email addresses so he could do his own peer review, is now up to 35 retractions.

The four new retractions are of the papers in the Journal of Enzyme Inhibition and Medicinal Chemistry that initially led to suspicions when all the reviews came back within 24 hours. Here’s the notice, which includes the same language as Moon’s 24 other retractions of studies published in Informa Healthcare journals:

Journal editor resigned in wake of retractions for fake email addresses that enabled self-peer review

The case of Hyung-In Moon — the researcher who faked email addresses for potential peer reviewers so he could do his own peer review — has already led to one resignation.

Emilio Jirillo, the editor of Immunopharmacology and Immunotoxicology, which retracted 20 of Moon’s papers, stepped down earlier this year in the wake of the case, Retraction Watch has learned.

Here’s a note the publisher posted on the journal’s site on June 15: