Paper cited by article at center of lawsuit for criticizing Splenda earns an expression of concern

Susan Schiffman

A journal has issued an expression of concern for a 2008 paper suggesting artificial sweetener Splenda could disrupt the gut microbiome and cause other havoc with the gastrointestinal system – and which is cited by a paper at the center of a lawsuit against one of its authors by the maker of the sugar substitute.

The article, “Splenda Alters Gut Microflora and Increases Intestinal P-Glycoprotein and Cytochrome P-450 in Male Rats,” appeared in the Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, Part A, a Taylor & Francis title. The journal has a Part B, too, which also is part of this story.

The paper, which has been cited more than 200 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science, caught the attention of Elisabeth Bik, who last year commented on the article on PubPeer, noting potential problems with four of the figures, including Western blots and missing error bars. 

Susan Schiffman, the last author of the paper and a psychologist then at Duke University in Durham, N.C., but who has since moved to North Carolina State University in Raleigh, responded to Bik’s post. She said a researcher named in the acknowledgements of the paper had been asked to perform the Western blots “because she is highly skilled and very accurate,” and some of the others figures had included error bars but they made the figure “too busy.” She said she did not have access to the original data. 

According to the expression of concern

After publication of this article, questions about the scientific integrity of the article were brought to the Editor’s and Publisher’s attention. We contacted the authors, but have not yet received the required data or supporting materials necessary to complete the investigation. As this investigation may take some time to resolve, we advise readers to interpret the information presented in the article with due caution. The authors have been notified about this Expression of Concern.

Last May, Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, Part B published a review by Schiffman and several of her colleagues that argued sucralose is “genotoxic” and its presence in the food supply should be the focus of “a regulatory status review.” It also cites the paper that is now subject to an expression of concern.

The May 2023 paper – which has been cited four times – did not please TC Heartland, the maker of Splenda, which has sued Schiffman for defamation. Heartland, which brought the case in the US District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, claims Schiffman:

chose to chase headlines rather than tell the truth. Dr. Schiffman spread falsehoods about Splenda, and in doing so she harmed Heartland and the millions of consumers who rely on Splenda as an important part of achieving their health goals. 

The paper, the company claims, is “dishonest and deeply flawed for numerous reasons,” and “Schiffman’s subsequent claims about Splenda on her press tour were plainly false: Her paper expressly confirms that the sucralose Schiffman claimed to have studied for it was not the sucralose used in Splenda.”

Schiffman and Duke did not respond to requests for comment. 

One more note: The lead author of the article was Mohamed B Abou-Donia,  of Duke. That name might be familiar to readers of Retraction Watch from this 2021 post about an investigation at the institution involving three papers on which he was the second of two authors. Abou-Donia died in 2023 of complications of COVID-19, according to Schiffman’s comments on PubPeer. 

Those articles have all since been retracted with the same notice:

Following an institutional investigation, the journal is retracting this article. The institution determined there is insufficient source documentation to verify either the reliability of the published results or the origins of the samples used. The institution also determined that the first co-author should not have been named as co-author of the article.

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A cardiac surgeon’s tortuous efforts – including three lawsuits – to get the scientific record corrected

Vittorio Mantovani

For the past 14 years, a cardiac surgeon in Italy has been trying to blow the whistle on a study written by his former colleagues that has been the subject of several investigations – with two of them finding problems with the data. And despite defeating three defamation lawsuits, two  which were brought by authors of the paper, he’s not giving up yet. 

The 2006 paper, ‘Relationship between atrial histopathology and atrial fibrillation after coronary bypass surgery’, written by several of cardiac surgeon Vittorio Mantovani’s colleagues at the Ospedale di Circolo in Varese, was published in the Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery. To date, the paper – which has been cited 57 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science – has been investigated by at least two institutions as well as the journal. None have resulted in a retraction, despite one university finding that only a little more than half of the patients in the dataset could be matched unambiguously with biopsy samples. One university is also waiting on the journal to act before it considers reopening its own investigation. 

For Mantovani, the red flags started appearing in 2010, when he came across a minor discrepancy between two other papers written by him and his colleagues. He thought it was odd that in one dataset, patients were identified by name, but in the other, they were identified using numbers. 

Mantovani asked Giuseppe Cozzi, an author of the 2006 paper and first author of both of the other papers, for a list of the patients’ names. He received no reply, and Cozzi has not responded to our request for comment on this story. 

Mantovani says Cozzi not answering a “simple question” led to him losing confidence in his colleagues and their published work. He made efforts to have the 2006 paper investigated by the institutions involved. 

The findings of the first institutional investigation into the paper came from Umeå University in 2012 – where lead author of the paper, Giovanni Mariscalco, had completed the study as part of his PhD thesis. Their report, written in Swedish and Italian, found several inconsistencies in the dataset, but ultimately concluded that there were no reasons to suspect scientific dishonesty. 

Things had taken a turn for the worse in the Varese hospital once Mantovani voiced his skepticism of his colleagues’ published work. In a complaint to police, he accused his colleagues of workplace harassment. They were cleared of the charges. 

Mantovani was also sued for defamation by two of the paper’s authors — Mariscalco and Andrea Sala, plus a third from Cesare Beghi, the head of cardiac surgery at Varese hospital. He won all three cases. Beghi has not responded to requests for comment, and Sala could not be reached for comment. 

“Being honest is expensive,” Mantovani said. “But what is the alternative?”

Part of Umeå’s investigation relied on the hospital in Varese verifying the authenticity of the data. In response to questions from the university, Cesare Beghi, the head of cardiac surgery at the hospital, wrote two letters verifying that the data was accurate, and effectively put an end to the investigation. 

Because of the police involvement in the previous allegations at the hospital, they had been wiretapping conversations among the staff. Police wiretaps from November 2012 – which the University of Insubria would later include in an appendix to an investigation report – revealed that the letters Beghi wrote were drafted with Mariscalco, the lead author of the 2006 paper and one of the subjects of Umeå’s inquiry. 

Then, in September 2017, the University of Insubria – the home institution for several of the paper’s authors – published the results of its own investigation into the paper. It found that the paper was not randomized as it had claimed, that only 41 patients out of the 70 could be matched unambiguously with each biopsy slide, and that eight patients were enrolled before the approval of the ethics committee. 

According to the final report of the investigation, Mariscalco told the investigators he had requested the folders with the collected data from the hospital, but the folders were found empty. Sala, one of the coauthors, told the committee that the patients were not randomized to protect their health. The report concluded that the committee had “doubts as to the collection of the data and the complete correctness of the research analysis.” 

In an email to Retraction Watch, Mariscalco wrote that he was neither the principal investigator nor the one responsible for data histological storage, documentation or analysis. “I must point out that the overarching evidence around the study and its conclusions have never been questioned by the several investigations that have taken place,” he wrote. 

He adds: “Despite some discrepancy across different datasets have been raised, these were largely anticipated in view of the temporal gap (more than 15 years) between the period when the study was conducted and the time when the clarifications were requested.”

In October 2017, Insubria sent the translated copy of its findings to Umeå University and then-editor of the Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Richard D. Weisel, who declined to comment for this story. The journal has not taken any visible action on the paper.

Umeå University revisited the issue in 2018 and according to a letter (in Swedish) written by the University’s legal representative, Chatarina Larson, and Patrik Danielson, the dean of the faculty of medicine, they decided not to act on the findings of Insubria’s investigation. They wrote that if the Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery took action against the article, Umeå University would have reason to review the case. 

In an email to Retraction Watch, Larson explained: 

…in Swedish Administrative Law (1985:223) (today Swedish Administrative Law (2017:900)); A Swedish authority may change a decision it has pronounced if it is incorrect. But regardless of such incorrectness it is not allowed to change such a decision if the decision by its nature is favorable to any individual party. In such case it must not be changed to that individual´s disadvantage, unless the inaccuracy is due to the party having provided incorrect or misleading information…

Umeå University is an administrative authority of the state of Sweden and obliged to comply with Swedish law. According to the clause of the Swedish Administrative law referred to above Umeå University was not allowed to reconsider the matter from 2012 unless its former decision was found to be incorrect – and if so – the incorrect decision was based upon incorrect or misleading information deliberately provided by the party.  

Umeå University’s decision from 2012 was a decision by its nature favorable to the party concern. The Italian report did not draw any conclusions in the matter of whether the data inconsistencies were intentional or negligent. Thus, there were no circumstances that showed that Umeå University’s decision in that regard was incorrect.

In other words there was no legal possibilities, or obligations, for the university to reconsider its earlier decision in this situation. 

According to Danielson, Umeå University contacted the journal to ask whether they would take action based on the findings of the investigation and received no response. Mantovani himself has contacted the journal several times to follow up on whether they would be taking action on the paper, and says he has received no reply. 

In an email to Retraction Watch, the current editor-in-chief of the Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, G. Alexander Patterson, wrote that he hadn’t been aware of the issue until our email in January and consulted the previous editor. 

He said that the journal’s ethics committee did an internal investigation “with appropriate due diligence”, and decided not to retract. “I understand that the matter was also before the Italian courts,” he wrote. “We are not aware of their deliberations or decisions.” 

There is no indication of the internal or external investigations into the paper on the journal’s website. “Maybe they have a good reason not to retract the paper or not to put a notice of warning,” Mantovani says. “The rest of the scientific world should know that.” 

In his response to our questions, Mariscalco wrote that the paper had been subject to several investigations, including a UK investigation he declined to share, which “cleared me from any allegations, including research misconduct.” He then threatened to sue if we published a story about this:

Given those evidence, and given the long list of attacks around the same matters I have been subjected over the years, I will consider harassment and defamation any article that reports these incredibly old allegations without giving great relevance to the conclusions of all the following investigations that have cleared my name from any allegations/charges. Please be advised that I could pursue legal actions to the appropriate Authorities to protect my reputation, and this may include seeking damages for the harm caused.

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Medical society takes millions from company that sued it for defamation – and lost

When the American Society of Anesthesiologists last October announced the receipt of a $2.5 million donation from a drug company – “to advance education and innovation for our members”  – the news could have been dismissed with a shrug. After all, such gifts from industry to medical societies are commonplace. 

What makes this case noteworthy is that until the donation, the ASA and the drug maker, Pacira BioSciences, were better known as adversaries embroiled in a bitter lawsuit over three articles about the company’s flagship product the society had published in 2021 in its main scientific journal. 

The papers, which questioned the effectiveness of Exparel, an anesthetic intended for the treatment of patients undergoing orthopedic surgery and other procedures. As we reported in May 2021, as part of a larger suit against the ASA, Pacira demanded in legal filings that the ASA and its journal, Anesthesiology, retract the papers, which it considered libelous. 

The company didn’t hold that stance long, however. We wrote then: 

The company asked the court for a preliminary injunction to retract two papers and an editorial about Exparel that Anesthesiology published in February. But on May 7,  Pacira withdrew the motion, about a week after the ASA filed its own motion calling for a quick hearing on the merits of the company’s motion.

We also noted at the time ASA was taking a hard line against Pacira. The society said then: 

Although Pacira started this lawsuit, ASA will not shy away from refuting Pacira’s claims and from exposing the important issues with Pacira’s controversial drug.

Pacira may have backed down from its demands for retraction, but it didn’t quit the case – even after the the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey ruled in February 2022 the drug maker “fail[ed] to state a claim for trade libel against any defendant.” 

Pacira appealed that decision. And lost again, in March 2023. 

Praising the appellate court’s ruling, the ASA issued a statement quoting its then-president, Michael Champeau: 

This affirmation of the district court’s dismissal is an important victory for ASA as well as for the scientific process and free speech. … This decision makes clear that pharmaceutical companies are not free to intimidate the scientific process by filing meritless lawsuits.

What a difference seven months makes. 

In October 2023, the ASA posted a press release highlighting Pacira’s beneficence. The statement reads, in part: 

As an Industry Supporter, Pacira is helping to establish a strong, mutually beneficial relationship with the anesthesiology community, strengthen collaboration between physician anesthesiologists and industry, and add to the value the Society provides to patients and the public, while providing invaluable year-round support of ASA programs and priorities related to non-opioid alternatives and postsurgical care.

The release does not mention the lawsuit. 

Evan Kharasch, the top editor of Anesthesiology when the Exparel case began and a named defendant in Pacira’s initial suit, told us he had “no knowledge other than the ASA press releases” of the circumstances around Pacira’s donation to ASA and would not speak to its propriety. However, he said: 

I’m pleased and grateful that the ASA chose to defend the journal and the authors in this case. 

Kharasch, who wrote an article for the Mayo Clinic Proceedings this month about the lawsuit’s implication for academic freedom, added the fact the company lost its suit “speaks to the fact that courtrooms are not the place to debate science.” 
Pacira did not respond to a request for an interview. But a joint press release with ASA, dated Oct. 12, 2023, quotes Dave Stack, the CEO and board chair of the company, saying: 

Pacira is pleased to support ASA and we look forward to collaborating in our efforts to improve patient outcomes through opioid-minimizing strategies. … Our organizations share a common interest in advancing education and innovation for the anesthesia community and the patients we serve. We believe that working together, Pacira and the ASA can effect significant change in the best interest of patients.

The release notes Pacira’s grant puts it in rarified company: 

Launched in 2010, ASA’s Industry Supporter Program is limited to 10 organizations at any time. Participation is intended for companies who want to stand apart by showcasing high-level commitment to the education of physician anesthesiologists, the anesthesia care team and advancement of the specialty.

ASA president Ronald L. Harter told Retraction Watch that “the grant is not related to the lawsuit, which concluded long before the grant was ever discussed.”  (The lawsuit concluded at the end of March 2023. The grant was announced in October 2023.)

Harter continued:

We have moved forward and are pleased with the grant from Pacira to advance the medical specialty of anesthesiology and the perioperative, pain medicine and critical care our members provide; facilitate best-in-class clinician education; and improve patient care. 

Harter declined to say exactly how much the legal fees totaled, but said they “were substantially in excess of the grant amount. As noted, the two are unrelated.”

James Eisenach, the top editor at Anesthesiology when it published the Exparel papers, and a named defendant in the Pacira suit, declined to comment on the donation. However, Eisenach praised ASA for paying for the legal defenses of himself and the other defendants, and called the outcome of the case: 

a resounding success for science. … I was really pleased; I think it’s precedent-setting.

But word of the donation has displeased some anesthesiologists, who did not want to be identified because of their connections with the ASA. One person familiar with Pacira’s gift called the payment “blood money,” adding: “I question the ethics” of the arrangement. 

Another leading anesthesiologist told us: 

The larger academic community was appalled by the implications of the Pacira legal maneuvers that challenged academic freedom of journals and societies, not to mention individual authors.  So the strong defense by ASA and the fact that ASA prevailed was a major win.  I was not happy to see this current bit of news. If it had been up to me,  I would have told them exactly where to deposit their donation! 

Asked about these concerns, Harter said: 

We recognize that it’s possible there are varying opinions across our membership of 57,000, but we believe that in general our members are looking forward to the progress that can be made through this support and understand the importance of working together with industry to achieve critical goals such as enhancing care and optimizing patient outcomes.

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Stanford prof who sued critics loses appeal against $500,000 in legal fees

Mark Jacobson

Mark Jacobson, a Stanford professor who sued a journal and a critic for $10 million before dropping the case, has lost an appeal he filed in 2022 to avoid paying defendants more than $500,000 in legal fees.

As we have previously reported, Jacobson:

…who studies renewable energy at Stanford, sued in September 2017 in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia for defamation over a 2017 paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) that critiqued a 2015 article he had written in the same journal. He sued PNAS and the first author of the paper, Christopher Clack, an executive at a firm that analyzes renewable energy.

The fees, based on an anti-SLAPP statute, are “designed to provide for early dismissal of meritless lawsuits filed against people for the exercise of First Amendment rights.” Jacobson tried to argue that, by dropping the suit, he was no longer liable for legal fees because the statute requires that defendants “prevail.”

But the three judges in the District of Columbia Court of Appeals disagreed. Justice Joshua Deahl, writing on behalf of himself and colleagues, held: 

under Jacobson’s preferred approach, a plaintiff could engage in harassing and meritless litigation up until the point at which they sense the court might dismiss the case, and then voluntarily dismiss the suit themselves, all the while keeping the threat of refiling hanging over the defendants’ heads and running up their legal bills.

The specter of repeat litigation by Jacobson is not farfetched.  In his briefing to this court, Jacobson continues to take issue with “the refusal of Dr. Clack and NAS to correct the false facts to this day, in reckless disregard for the truth.”  Much of his brief rehashes his claims that NAS and Clack defamed him and he persists in condemning Clack’s article.  In arguing that NAS and Clack have not “prevailed,” Jacobson repeatedly asserts that he retains the ability to refile his defamation suit, “keeping the defendant[s] at risk.”

Indeed, Jacobson told us in a statement – available here – he is “evaluating whether to appeal the DC decision to the full DC Appellate court”: 

It appears the court decided to set a precedent, ensuring that future voluntary dismissals before a ruling in similar-type cases would be subject to the risk of a fee award.

Echoing the judges’ description of his brief as rehashing the original claims, he said:

With this decision, the court is basically saying that a scientist can falsify or publish with reckless disregard for the truth false definitions or data or even lie in a scientific article with the purpose of harming or defaming another individual or group of individuals, but such actions do not fall under D.C. defamation law because the statement is published in a scientific paper rather than in a newspaper or other public forum.

In June 2022, Jacobson prevailed on the California Labor Commissioner to order Stanford to pay his own attorneys’ fees because, he argued, bringing the suit was “necessary for my job,” particularly defending his reputation. Stanford’s appeal of that decision, and arguments against paying for the fee awards in the District of Columbia, will be heard at a trial in May.

Commenting more generally on the suit, the judges wrote:

What animates Jacobson’s $10 million defamation suit is nothing more than his indignation at an article critical of his work. Such criticism comes with the territory of academic debate.

Such lawsuits can, of course, be expensive.

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Professor who sued employer for discrimination refiles after judge dismissed his suit

Moses Bility

A professor at the University of Pittsburgh who sued the institution for racial discrimination and retaliation has refiled his suit after a federal judge dismissed his claims. 

As we’ve previously reported, Moses Bility, an assistant professor of infectious diseases and microbiology in the university’s School of Public Health, sued the school earlier this year. 

Among many claims of racial discrimination, Bility alleged the school’s response to a 2020 paper he published and later withdrew that proposed jade amulets may prevent COVID-19 was discriminatory. (In the process of our previous reporting on the article, Bility accused Retraction Watch of racism.) 

According to Bility’s complaint, Pitt officials demanded an investigation of his research, which found he “did not violate any academic integrity standard.” However, at a departmental town hall meeting over Zoom, presenting the investigation’s findings, “students in Defendant Pitt’s School of Public Health called Dr. Bility derogatory names, such as stupid, retarded, unintelligent, etc.” Bility later received two emails “from anonymous individuals who Dr. Bility assumes came from the Defendant Pitt community” that included racial slurs.  

Bility also alleges the school denied his application for tenure as retaliation for his complaints of discrimination. 

Pitt and two administrators named in the suit, the former and current deans of the School of Public Health, filed a motion to dismiss the case in August. Last month, the judge assigned to the case granted that motion, but allowed Bility to update and refile his complaint. He did so earlier this month. 

In her opinion, Judge Marilyn J. Horan wrote that Bility had not established that the majority of the claimed discriminatory acts were connected to his race. 

Judge Horan wrote that Bility’s allegations the school denied his application for tenure as retaliation was “conclusory,” and “not enough to suggest that there is a causal relationship between his formal complaints about racial discrimination and the denial of his tenure.” She wrote:  

The substantial passage of time between his formal discrimination complaints and the tenure decisions does not support or even suggest that any causal connection existed between the alleged protected activity and the tenure decision. 

In response to our request for comment, Bility’s lawyer, Steven O’Hanlon of the firm O’Hanlon Schwartz, pointed us to the updated complaint Bility filed on November 8. The new complaint alleges Pitt informed him his employment will end in August 2024.

Pitt’s lawyer Jonathan Marcus, of the firm Marcus & Shapira (no connection to Retraction Watch co-founder Adam Marcus), declined to comment.

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Authors hire lawyer as journal plans to retract their article on pesticide poisoning

A public health journal intends to retract an article that estimated how many unintentional pesticide poisonings happen each year worldwide, Retraction Watch has learned. 

In response, the authors hired a lawyer to represent them in contesting the retraction, and maintain the journal’s decision “undermines the integrity of the scientific process.” This is the second time within a few months that the journal retracted an article through a process authors said was problematic.

BMC Public Health published the article, “The global distribution of acute unintentional pesticide poisoning: estimations based on a systematic review,” in December 2020. It has been cited 145 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science. 

The authors are all affiliated with the Pesticide Action Network, a collection of organizations “working to replace the use of hazardous pesticides with ecologically sound and socially just alternatives,” as they disclosed in the paper. In their review, they concluded that unintentional pesticide poisoning “is an ongoing major global public health challenge” and “a problem that warrants immediate action.” 

In a statement to Retraction Watch, first author Wolfgang Boedeker called the journal’s process for deciding to retract the paper “problematic from the beginning.” He wrote: 

There was no information provided to the authors about any kind of investigation into our paper prior to being informed about the planned retraction. We, the authors, were piece-wise informed about the reasons, only after repeatedly asking for them. We learned by email that the details of the investigation remained confidential.

The paper previously attracted criticism from the pesticide industry. In October 2021, the journal published a letter to the editor in which employees of Bayer and CropLife International claimed the numbers in the article “appear to overestimate the global burden of pesticide poisonings.” The authors responded that the critics “do not seem to have understood our estimation method.” 

Earlier this year, the journal informed Boedeker’s group of a separate critique from a reader alleging they had overestimated the number of pesticide poisonings in France. The authors responded, but their response was apparently unsatisfactory. In April, an editor told the authors that the journal would retract their article. 

According to the authors’ rebuttal to the retraction, they were told the decision was based on the assessment of one editorial board member. After further back-and-forth, the authors learned the critical reader and editorial board member had concerns about the data the authors had sourced for other countries in addition to France. They defended their methods in detail in their rebuttal. 

Boedeker told us: 

The critique suggests that using an ‘ever’ prevalence of poisoning to denote annual frequency may result in an overestimation. We agreed on this and discussed this at length as a possible source for bias in our publication. However, the question is if such an overestimation has taken place. We detailed in our rebuttal that the prevalences used in our extrapolations are not higher than “true” annual ones and therefore no overestimation has taken place. For countries without a strict annual prevalence the effect on the extrapolations is negligible.

On May 24, Natalie Pafitis, senior editor of BMC Public Health, emailed the authors saying the journal would still retract the article following “further advice” from an editorial board member on their rebuttal. Pafitis shared the editorial board member’s comments and wrote: 

As stated previously, and in light of the advice received above, we no longer have confidence in the data you are reporting in your study and will be proceeding with a retraction using the following text:

============

The Editor has retracted this article because concerns were raised about the use of  ‘ever’ prevalence of pesticide poisoning to represent annual frequency in the extrapolations. Expert assessment has confirmed the validity of this concern and also concluded that the assumption of annual exposure for countries where the time frame is not reported is unreliable.  The Editor therefore no longer has confidence in the results and conclusions presented. [The authors agree/do not agree with this retraction].

===========

Pafitis has not responded to our request for comment. Last month, the journal retracted a paper on e-cigarettes and smoking rates, also following a reader critique and assessment by an editorial board member, which the authors of that paper said was flawed. 

The authors of the pesticide paper responded to the editorial board member’s new comments, disputing them. 

On July 14, their lawyer sent the journal a letter arguing that the retraction would be “inappropriate.” The lawyer proposed that the paper receive an expression of concern instead of a retraction notice, and that the authors be allowed to republish it elsewhere. The letter stated: 

The Authors feel strongly that the importance of the topic of their work requires more scientific debate, not the complete elimination of their findings from scientific discourse. 

Boedeker said the journal should have asked the critical reader to submit a letter to the editor, “which would have generated an interesting dialogue on the science around estimations of pesticide poisoning,” and “could have encouraged further discussion of how to improve on data collection on pesticide poisonings, by governments and other institutions, in order to work towards preventing harm.” 

Even if the critique of the paper was correct, Boedeker said, the effect on the study’s results would be negligible, and the journal’s decision to retract wouldn’t line up with its own policies. “The retraction of our paper is an unacceptable result from an unacceptable process,” he said.

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PLOS backs down from expression of concern after author’s lawsuit

Soudamani Singh

A researcher who sued the publisher PLOS to prevent it from posting an expression of concern for one of her papers has dropped her suit, and the publisher tells us it will add a correction to the article instead – but may “revisit this case” to deal with “unresolved issues.”

We’ve previously reported on the lawsuit Soudamani Singh, an assistant professor in the Department of Clinical and Translational Sciences at Marshall University’s Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine in Huntington, W. Va., filed against PLOS in April, as well as signs of a pending settlement

According to an order filed November 2, Singh informed the court that she “voluntarily dismisses” the claims in her complaint, without the possibility of re-filing them, and the judge dismissed the case. 

In her complaint, Singh alleged that PLOS planned to place an expression of concern on one of her papers, “Cyclooxygenase pathway mediates the inhibition of Na-glutamine co-transporter B0AT1 in rabbit villus cells during chronic intestinal inflammation,” published in PLOS ONE in September 2018, after she and her co-authors had requested a correction of a duplicated image. The paper has been cited nine times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science, but not since April 2021. 

A comment left last June 14 on one of our posts had identified a duplicated image in the paper, but the corresponding author told us he and his coauthors had noticed the “accidental error” independently and asked the journal for a correction. PLOS spokesperson David Knutson previously told us the authors contacted the publisher on June 17. 

Singh argued an expression of concern on the paper would imply “a certain level of intentional misconduct (i.e. plagiarism, falsifying data, etc.) or that something otherwise nefarious has occurred with an article,” and would be inappropriate.

PLOS’s guidelines for publishing expressions of concern do not mention misconduct, but state they are “notices published at editors’ discretion to alert readers of serious concerns about published work or an article’s compliance with PLOS policies (e.g. Data Availability).”

Singh asked for a temporary restraining order and permanent injunction to stop PLOS from publishing the expression of concern, as well as damages and legal fees. Her lawyer did not respond to our request for comment on the resolution of the case.

Knutson told us PLOS could not disclose terms of the settlement without Singh’s consent due to a confidentiality agreement. But he did tell us the publisher would add a correction to the article, “which achieves our editorial objective of providing key updates to the article’s readers.” He explained: 

We initially considered an Expression of Concern for this case due to unresolved concerns. After careful consideration we decided that there is sufficient support for the article’s results to allow us to publish a Correction at this time, even though some data concerns have not yet been resolved (as is described in the forthcoming Correction). It is unclear if the data concerns can be resolved and/or how long this would require; with this Correction decision, we prioritized timely resolution of the current case and transparent disclosure of the resolved and unresolved issues to readers. That said, we may revisit this case in the future depending on what comes of the pending data concern issue.

As a side note, PLOS has a policy and process in place by which our Publication Ethics team handles appeals of post-publication decisions. It is not necessary to involve legal representatives: authors’ appeals are considered as long as they are submitted in accordance with our policy, and filing a lawsuit only tends to delay case resolution and detract vital resources from other work. 

In a previous case, diabetes researcher Mario Saad sued a journal publisher to block expressions of concern on his work, but a U.S. federal judge denied the request for a restraining order and injunction because, as one legal commentator explained, the First Amendment does not allow courts to prohibit speech ahead of time. Saad, who is now up to 19 retractions, recently had four more expressions of concern from the same journal.

Like Retraction Watch? You can make a tax-deductible contribution to support our work, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, add us to your RSS reader, or subscribe to our daily digest. If you find a retraction that’s not in The Retraction Watch Database, you can let us know here. For comments or feedback, email us at team@retractionwatch.com.

Cancer researcher with nine retractions says he’ll take publisher to court

Mostafa Jarahian

A cancer researcher who lost nine papers in one day as a publisher purged articles offered in “authorship-for-sale” schemes told Retraction Watch he and his co-authors “will soon defend ourselves legally.” 

Last month, the publisher Frontiers announced it had retracted 38 papers after its research integrity team found links to the practice of buying and selling authorship positions. Brokers list advertisements for authorships of scientific papers on dedicated websites as well as social media.  

Nine of the 38 articles Frontiers retracted listed Mostafa Jarahian, formerly of the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) in Heidelberg, as a co-author. 

When we initially reported on the large batch of retractions, one of Jarahian’s co-authors shared an article from Frontiers  indicating the publisher had decided to retract the paper after “concerns were brought to our attention from the German Cancer Research Center regarding the authorship of the article.” 

A draft retraction notice included in the email said: 

the German Cancer Research Center contacted the editorial office stating that the author Mostafa Jarahian is not an employee. 

We reached out to Jarahian at the time, but didn’t hear back until recently. He shared with us an email from Martin R. Berger, who had led the DKFZ’s Toxicology and Chemotherapy research group with Jarahian as a member, to Frontiers. Berger confirmed to us that he sent the email, which disputed the publisher’s reasons for retracting Jarahian’s articles. 

Berger wrote that Jarahian had been a member of the DKFZ since 2001, and part of Berger’s department from 2017 until leaving in 2020. All nine retracted papers were submitted in 2021, according to the articles’ webpages, and published either that year or in 2022. Berger wrote: 

As I understand the situation, the only allegation, which is correct, is that the article(s) under concern was (were) labelled with his old affiliation. On the other hand, there is some period after leaving an institution, during which it is normal to use the old affiliation, as the work originated and was carried out there. In addition, during the period in question, Dr. Jarahian did not have a new position / new employer. In this situation, he used his private email address, which clearly differs from official DKFZ email addresses.

Finally, the science of the article(s) is not being disputed. In addition, the co-authors have not been involved in any accusation regarding science integrity. Therefore, it does not seem appropriate, to harm all authors because of a minor mistake of one author. If you deem it necessary to establish justice in this regard, I suggest that you allow Dr. Jarahian to write a short erratum.

If you can follow this suggestion, you would solve the underlying problem with distinction and grace and avoid the punishment of many co-authors. In the case, in which a PhD is pending on a publication, this would seem clearly unfair and exaggerated.

Berger told us he had not received any response from Frontiers, which he said was “sad as well as a nuisance.” 

Jarahian said he and his co-authors had not taken legal action yet, “but we intend to do it.” He did not respond further when we asked him to comment on Frontiers’ finding that his retracted papers had author positions posted for sale. 

A Frontiers spokesperson told us the publisher was “confident in our decision” and had “received no indication of legal action by Mostafa Jarahian against Frontiers to date.” The spokesperson said: 

The retraction decision was a result of a thorough investigation by the Frontiers’ Research Integrity team. The concerns over ‘authorship for sale’ were flagged via Pubpeer, a valuable source of community feedback, of the adverts for several of Dr Jarahian’s publications (here and here). Similar concerns of authorship abnormalities were highlighted in articles published by the same author group elsewhere (for example, see here and here).  

Following the direct discussions with the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), the institution confirmed that  

  • Dr Jarahian was no longer an employee (the tenure finished in February 2020)  
  • DKFZ was not aware of any of the 9 articles, all of which were submitted and published in 2021. 

We shared the details of our investigation with the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). The Committee subsequently confirmed that Frontiers had followed adequate processes consistent with COPE expectations to assess the concerns and correct the published record.

Like Retraction Watch? You can make a tax-deductible contribution to support our work, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, add us to your RSS reader, or subscribe to our daily digest. If you find a retraction that’s not in our database, you can let us know here. For comments or feedback, email us at team@retractionwatch.com.

PLOS and scientist appear close to settling lawsuit over expression of concern

Soundamani Singh

The publisher PLOS appears close to an agreement with a scientist who sued to stop the addition of an expression of concern to one of her articles, according to a recent filing in the case. 

Soudamani Singh, an assistant professor in the Department of Clinical and Translational Sciences at Marshall University’s Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine in Huntington, W. Va., filed suit against PLOS in April, as we previously reported

According to Singh’s complaint, the publisher planned to place an expression of concern on one of her papers after she and her co-authors had requested a correction. 

Singh’s suit sought a temporary restraining order and permanent injunction preventing PLOS from publishing the expression of concern, as well as damages and legal fees. 

The paper at issue, “Cyclooxygenase pathway mediates the inhibition of Na-glutamine co-transporter B0AT1 in rabbit villus cells during chronic intestinal inflammation,” published in PLOS ONE in September 2018, currently has no notice of any sort. The article has been cited nine times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science. 

On October 12, the federal judge assigned to the case ordered a stay of the action, citing a “pending settlement.” The judge also ordered the parties to submit an order dismissing the case by November 13, or the court would dismiss the case, allowing the possibility for Singh to re-file. 

We could not learn the terms of the settlement. Singh’s lawyer did not respond to our request for comment, and David Knutson, senior communications manager for PLOS, said the publisher “cannot comment because this is an ongoing case.”

Like Retraction Watch? You can make a tax-deductible contribution to support our work, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, add us to your RSS reader, or subscribe to our daily digest. If you find a retraction that’s not in our database, you can let us know here. For comments or feedback, email us at team@retractionwatch.com.

Exclusive: Author threatened to sue publisher over retraction, then sued to block release of emails

An education researcher who had four papers flagged for plagiarism and citation issues threatened to sue the publisher and editors who decided to retract one of the articles, Retraction Watch has learned. 

We obtained the emails containing legal threats by Constance Iloh, formerly an assistant professor at the University of California, Irvine, through a public records request. Iloh, who was named to Forbes’ “30 Under 30” top figures in education in 2016 and briefly taught at Azusa Pacific University after leaving Irvine, sued to prevent the university from giving us the emails, but after a two-year legal battle, a state appeals court affirmed the records should be released. That battle is described in more detail in this post.

Following our reporting in August 2020 on the retraction of one of Iloh’s articles for plagiarism, the disappearance of another, and the correction of two more, we requested post-publication correspondence between UCI, Iloh, and the journals where the papers had appeared. 

The emails UCI released to us in May of this year shed light on the processes three journals took after concerns were raised about Iloh’s work, and how she responded. 

The documents do not indicate UCI had any formal involvement in correcting the scholarly record. Whether the university opened an investigation into allegations of research misconduct is unclear; they told us they were “not in possession of responsive releasable documents” when we requested reports of such an inquiry. 

Iloh and her lawyer, Elvin Tabah, have not responded to our request for comment. In a Medium post, Iloh claimed she experienced “academic mobbing and bullying” at UCI, actions that include “attack, harassment, humiliation, trolling, stalking, death threats, doxxing, and even online identity impersonation.” She described anonymous complaints asking the university to investigate her work for plagiarism as “a hit job” and called coverage of the actions journals took with her papers – presumably our posts – “deviant clickbait.” 

In response to our previous emails to Iloh offering her an opportunity to comment, another UCI faculty member sent us legal threats, which the university said “were personal and not made on behalf of the University.”

Iloh’s emails with staff at Taylor & Francis, which in 2017 published her article “Paving effective community college pathways by recognizing the Latino post-traditional student,” in the Journal of Latinos and Education, reveal that two years elapsed between the publisher opening an investigation into the article and publishing a retraction notice. 

In January 2019, a production editor at Taylor & Francis sent Iloh a PDF copy of her manuscript for her to mark up or submit a list of changes. Iloh replied with an updated manuscript on March 1. 

On May 3, the managing editor of the Routledge US Education Journals informed Iloh the publisher had received “feedback [that] inquires about the originality of some sections of text” of her article. The editor offered her “the opportunity to provide clarification on the text in question,” specifically “the decision of the specific material cited (primary versus secondary sources) and the use of direct reproduction of text from sources.”

Iloh responded a few days later. She asked for the “original feedback” to give to her lawyers and said she was not sure what the managing editor was asking of her. “It seems as though you have already made a judgment with ‘decisions’ so I am just not sure specifically what you are asking me to do.”

In the ensuing exchange, the editor gave Iloh multiple opportunities to comment on particular parts of her article and explain “the specific texts used and/or referenced within your article where there is a high degree of similarity.” 

Iloh made veiled legal threats at multiple points, claiming the article didn’t go through copy-editing before publication and she had tried to correct it. She wrote: 

I have reached out to the journal with edits that I was told would be done and instead, I was accused of making “decisions” on an article the journal acknowledged having published without copy-edits and me ever completing them.

It was also made clear to me “someone” was clearly “out to get” me, so I already have working understanding this matter is more than what is described.

The managing editor’s response gave Iloh a deadline of October 18 to comment on the “textual overlap that was brought to our attention.” 

In the next email in the records, dated March 12, 2020, the managing editor informed Iloh of the publisher’s decision to retract the paper due to “significant textual overlap between your article and several other works.” She gave Iloh a week to respond. 

Iloh’s responses repeated her claims that the article had not been copy-edited and she should be able to correct the article with added quotation marks and references. She again threatened legal action against the publisher and the whistleblower: 

I wish to reiterate legal recourse in event of aforementioned direction from your prior correspondence. I would also like a copy of the original accusation from the “anonymous” so that they and those colluding with them are accordingly dealt with in legal proceedings.

The managing editor replied to Iloh the next week with documentation that the article had indeed been copy-edited and Iloh had made corrections in the process before publication. She explained that the publisher had opened an investigation on Nov. 1, 2018 into “textual similarities in your article we had been alerted to.” She also explained the publisher’s process of reviewing requests to change articles after publication, and that they do not make changes while investigating an article. 

Over the next few months, Iloh and the managing editor exchanged more emails in which Iloh repeatedly threatened legal action and called the decision to retract her article “problematic and unlawful.” The managing editor reiterated Taylor & Francis’ decision and policies, including that the changes Iloh had requested “are too extensive for us to publish as a correction notice.”

The retraction notice was published on August 10, and we posted our first story on Iloh later that month

In subsequent emails, including one sent to Taylor & Francis executives with further threats to sue the company, Iloh accused the journal’s editors of “bias.” She also cited an error in the original retraction notice and claimed that journal staff were “determined to cause harm to me and retract my article, even on faulty grounds.” 

Taylor & Francis corrected the retraction notice, which said her 2017 article had “text overlap” with an article she had published in 2019, but otherwise stood by its processes and decision to retract the article in a letter from Jessica Vivian, the global portfolio director in charge of education journals. 

Vivian’s letter reviewed the publisher’s documentation that the article had been copy-edited, contrary to Iloh’s claims, and the process they had taken to retract the article and give Iloh an opportunity to explain the textual overlap, which she did not do. The letter also reiterated the company’s plagiarism policy and assessment that “the amount of textual overlap was far too substantial to warrant addressing the textual overlap through a correction.”

“​​With regards to your allegations of abuse and mishandling of your case,” Vivian wrote, “I would welcome the opportunity to review evidence against this claim. If you have this, please do share that with me at your earliest convenience.”

Vivian sent the letter on September 8, the day we filed our records request, so it is the last document included in the records UCI released to us. We do not know how Iloh may have responded. 

The publisher’s investigation “was conducted properly and professionally and we stand by the conclusions of the re-review of this case,” Mark Robinson, corporate media relations manager for Taylor & Francis, told us in an email. “There was a careful investigation into concerns about the article and extensive correspondence with the author, which is why the process took some time.”

In other correspondence we obtained, Iloh and staff at the publisher Sage took six months to agree on and publish the wording of a correction notice. Iloh objected to language indicating the original article had problems that were being fixed; staff described the changes she wanted to make to proposed wording as “not transparent enough.” 

The article at issue, “Does distance education go the distance for adult learners? Evidence from a qualitative study at an American community college,” appeared in the Journal of Adult and Continuing Education in 2018. The emails we obtained start in January 2019 with Iloh apparently sending an updated version of the article attached to an email with no body text. 

In another email to the journal’s editor and a Sage employee who managed the journal, dated March 21, Iloh seemingly sent an attachment related to the correction, but the email’s subject is blank and the body text does not specify what she attached. 

The managing editor’s reply on March 27 thanked Iloh for “reviewing the draft corrigendum,” but continued: 

However, we have concerns about the changes which you have made, particularly removing the record of references which have been amended/included in the updated version of your article.

The editor explained Sage’s policies “in line with best practices of transparency when making changes to a published version of record.”

The early version of the corrigendum stated: 

The author regrets that at the time of submission the following sources were not adequately referenced

Iloh responded: 

I hope this email finds you well. Per my previous email, this is not accurate however. Those references were not left out, they were added because of new text. I also do not approve of any language that includes “the author regrets.” I can send a new version as again I do not approve of the current and would never allow such. I will submit shortly.

After waiting for Iloh to send her updated version, the Sage editor sent a new revision with “only the information that it is essential to inform the readers of the changes to the version of record.” Iloh did not approve of it, either, and sent her proposed version on May 8. 

By that time, the previous managing editor had left Sage, and a new staffer had taken on the role. The editor responded on May 15: 

We have accommodated your changes as best we can, however the latest changes you have suggested are not transparent enough to meet the criteria set out in the COPE guidelines. We have the agreement of the Editor of the Journal of Adult and Continuing Education on the corrigendum wording, and will therefore be proceeding with the publication of the corrigendum text as attached with this email. I would like to thank you for your co-operation on this matter and hope you appreciate that SAGE and the Editor of the journal are responsible for ensuring transparency and that relevant procedures are adhered to, and therefore have full discretion regarding the content of the corrigendum wording.

Iloh sent another version the same day, writing: 

As you can see, those references were added in updating the text but they were not missing in the one from before so I want accuracy as well.

The editors accepted Iloh’s revision.  

After extensive emails in the proofing stage of production as Iloh questioned whether one reference was written correctly and asked to remove two references to her prior work (the article Taylor & Francis was in the process of retracting and another that would be removed), the correction was published in July 2019. It stated that “sections throughout the original manuscript have been re-written and updated and this manuscript also includes new references.” 

We asked SAGE about the journal’s decision to publish Iloh’s correction to the article, which added eight references. A spokesperson said: 

Those at Sage who were involved with the decision to publish a correction notice for the article are no longer at the company. Our current research integrity team is looking into what, if any, action we should take on the article now.

Iloh’s article “Not non-traditional, the new normal: adult learners and the role of student affairs in supporting older college students” appeared in the 2018 edition of the Journal of Student Affairs. The entire issue had been removed when we wrote our August 2020 post, without any notice. The emails we obtained shed light on what happened.  

In March 2019, Iloh emailed Colorado State University’s Student Affairs in Higher Education program, which publishes the Journal of Student Affairs, with an updated version of her article. According to the researcher, the new text had  “minor errors corrected” and two additional references. She wrote: 

I did not know there wasn’t a copy editing stage, after receiving a revise and resubmit and then an acceptance. I wanted to make sure I took time to carefully correct any errors following my return from family tragedies.

In the next email in the records, sent in December 2019, a CSU professor informed Iloh that the school’s leadership had decided to remove her article from the 2018 issue of the journal after a “plagiarism check” indicated “significant cause for concern.” The professor attached the TurnItIn report, which revealed 

direct use of others’ words, including whole sentences, without proper attribution. The most significant of which include the improper use of work by Chen (2017), Ke (2010), and Panacci (2015), as well as of your own work and a Concordia University website.

“I regret this situation keeps dogging you,” wrote the professor, who also mentioned talking with Iloh at an education conference. 

Because Iloh had tried to make changes to the article after publication, the professor offered Iloh the opportunity to submit a revision “with the plagiarism issues noted in the reports corrected.” If Iloh submitted a new manuscript, the professor wrote, “we will scan it again and assuming all issues have been corrected, we will republish the article online with an errata note that it was originally published in 2018 and revised due to errors in attribution.” 

If Iloh did not resubmit, the professor wrote: 

JSA must then note in the journal archives that your article was pulled from the issue due to significant errors in attribution.

I regret that we must take this course of action, but the integrity of the journal and these students’ work as editors must be upheld.

Iloh submitted an updated version of the article the same day. 

In March of 2020, the professor conveyed the journal’s decision that the new version didn’t sufficiently address the plagiarism issues, and the journal would not replace the article. 

“Although the percentages of individual similar content is very small, I still find issues with inappropriate use of secondary sources appearing as primary sources,” the professor wrote. “Consequently, it is thought that the core issues found with the original manuscript, although reduced, are still evident due to not appropriately attributing secondary sources.” 

Iloh replied later that day:

No worries, it is fine just being left it out. Thanks for your correspondence and I hope you are taking good care. I am not even sure what version I sent when I received your first email (as I was dealing with family deaths but wanted to respond given the nature), but these issues will never arise again. I apologize for any inconvenience.

We pointed out to the Journal of Student Affairs’ current leadership that at the time we were reporting this article, a PDF of the journal issue in which Iloh’s article appeared included the text as it originally appeared, with no notice. The professor now in charge of the journal thanked us for pointing out “an error in our website” and said the journal would take the issue down “until an original file can be located to edit and reupload.”

Like Retraction Watch? You can make a tax-deductible contribution to support our work, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, add us to your RSS reader, or subscribe to our daily digest. If you find a retraction that’s not in our database, you can let us know here. For comments or feedback, email us at team@retractionwatch.com.