Quantcast
ZME Science
  • News
  • Environment
  • Health
  • Future
  • Space
  • Features
    Menu
    Natural Sciences
    Health
    History & Humanities
    Space & Astronomy
    Technology
    Culture
    Resources
    Natural Sciences

    Physics

    • Matter and Energy
    • Quantum Mechanics
    • Thermodynamics

    Chemistry

    • Periodic Table
    • Applied Chemistry
    • Materials
    • Physical Chemistry

    Biology

    • Anatomy
    • Biochemistry
    • Ecology
    • Genetics
    • Microbiology
    • Plants and Fungi

    Geology and Paleontology

    • Planet Earth
    • Earth Dynamics
    • Rocks and Minerals
    • Volcanoes
    • Dinosaurs
    • Fossils

    Animals

    • Mammals
    • Birds
    • Fish
    • Reptiles
    • Amphibians
    • Invertebrates
    • Pets
    • Conservation
    • Animals Facts

    Climate and Weather

    • Climate Change
    • Weather and Atmosphere

    Geography

    Mathematics

    Health
    • Drugs
    • Diseases and Conditions
    • Human Body
    • Mind and Brain
    • Food and Nutrition
    • Wellness
    History & Humanities
    • Anthropology
    • Archaeology
    • Economics
    • History
    • People
    • Sociology
    Space & Astronomy
    • The Solar System
    • The Sun
    • The Moon
    • Planets
    • Asteroids, Meteors and Comets
    • Astronomy
    • Astrophysics
    • Cosmology
    • Exoplanets and Alien Life
    • Spaceflight and Exploration
    Technology
    • Computer Science & IT
    • Engineering
    • Inventions
    • Sustainability
    • Renewable Energy
    • Green Living
    Culture
    • Culture and Society
    • Bizarre Stories
    • Lifestyle
    • Art and Music
    • Gaming
    • Books
    • Movies and Shows
    Resources
    • How To
    • Science Careers
    • Metascience
    • Fringe Science
    • Science Experiments
    • School and Study
    • Natural Sciences
    • Health
    • History and Humanities
    • Space & Astronomy
    • Culture
    • Technology
    • Resources
  • Reviews
  • More
    • Agriculture
    • Anthropology
    • Biology
    • Chemistry
    • Electronics
    • Geology
    • History
    • Mathematics
    • Nanotechnology
    • Economics
    • Paleontology
    • Physics
    • Psychology
    • Robotics
  • About Us
    • About
    • The Team
    • Advertise
    • Contribute
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact
No Result
View All Result
ZME Science

No Result
View All Result
ZME Science

Home → Science → News

107 cancer papers retracted due to peer review fraud

The red flag was, ironically, the fact that reviewers responded to emails on time.

Mihai Andrei by Mihai Andrei
April 25, 2017
in News, Science

The red flag was, ironically, the fact that reviewers responded to emails on time.

Image via Pixabay.

The journal Tumor Biology has just retracted 107 research papers after discovering that several authors faked the peer-review progress. It’s not the first time the journal has done something like this — last year, 58 papers were retracted from seven different journals, and 25 of them came from Tumor Biology.

Valuing research is always hard. If you’re studying something that no one else has studied before, who can judge if you’re doing a good job or not? Unfortunately, there’s no perfect answer to that question, but there is a pretty good one, which hasn’t been topped for hundreds of years: peer review. Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or several people of similar competence to the authors — basically, you find the “peers” of the scientists and have them analyze the work. It constitutes a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field and it pretty much defines a quality scientific journal.

Because the niches of scientific research have diversified so much, authors are often asked to suggest peer reviewers for themselves. Who better knows who can understand your work than you, right? Well, that sounds pretty good in theory, but some journals take things even further. They ask authors to submit the contact details of these potential reviewers. By now, you probably see where this is ongoing — a malicious author can submit fake contact details, the journal editor merrily sends an email to that fake address, the fake review is submitted and all is good. The paper gets published.

It’s not always the authors that do the forging. In this case particularly, a possible culprit is a third-party, a company which non-English authors sometimes use to correct language and grammar mistakes.

“There is some evidence that so-called third-party language-editing services play a role in manipulating the reviewing process,” said a spokesperson for Springer, the company that published Tumor Biology until this year.

However, there are some things which they haven’t yet learned to forge.

“When a lot of the fake peer reviews first came up, one of the reasons the editors spotted them was that the reviewers responded on time,” said Elizabeth Wager, editor of the journal Research Integrity & Peer Review to Ars Technica. Reviewers almost always have to be chased, so “this was the red flag. And in a few cases, both the reviews would pop up within a few minutes of each other.”

A Chinese problem?

Well, thankfully, sometimes these scammers get caught, and this is what happened here. My feelings toward the journal are quite mixed because on one hand, this shouldn’t have happened in the first place, but if it does happen it’s really good when you catch them. After all, 107 papers is no joke, that’s a pretty huge amount for any journal.

The retraction statement was pretty dry [printscreen below]:

“The Publisher and Editor retract this article in accordance with the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). After a thorough investigation we have strong reason to believe that the peer review process was compromised.”

But looking on the list of names, it’s not hard to see that most if not all the authors are of Chinese origin. Considering that we’re talking about more than 100 papers, this seems a bit too much to be a mere coincidence. The Chinese “fake science industry” has been exposed before, though this is not necessarily the case here. For starters, the authors I’ve seen don’t actually work in China, but rather in Europe or North America (I haven’t looked at all of them though), so this could very well be the case of a predatory company taking advantage of naive researchers… or it could be unethical scientists, taking advantage of an imperfect system. We don’t know yet, and this is why it’s very important to keep an eye out for such instances of fraud.

Tumor Biology was passed from Springer to SAGE in January, and SAGE have pledged to avoid similar problems in the future.

“[Springer] were open about the past instances of peer review fraud, and as part of the relaunch they wanted to address the underlying reasons,” a SAGE spokesperson told Retraction Watch. “The Tumor Biology editorial team have already introduced new robust peer review practices expected from all SAGE journals.”

Was this helpful?


Thanks for your feedback!

Related posts:
  1. Bad Science – Study on Gay Marriage Was Fake, Gets Retracted
  2. First peer review paper on chemtrails finds exactly what you’d expect — it’s all pseudoscience
  3. Shaky science: 9 Retracted Studies That Left a Big Mark
  4. Ship of legendary explorer Shackleton found in Antarctica 107 years after it sank
  5. This handheld “pen” can detect fish and meat fraud in just a few seconds
Tags: forgeryfraudpeer review

ADVERTISEMENT
  • News
  • Environment
  • Health
  • Future
  • Space
  • Features
  • Reviews
  • More
  • About Us

© 2007-2021 ZME Science - Not exactly rocket science. All Rights Reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • News
  • Environment
  • Health
  • Future
  • Space
  • Features
    • Natural Sciences
    • Health
    • History and Humanities
    • Space & Astronomy
    • Culture
    • Technology
    • Resources
  • Reviews
  • More
    • Agriculture
    • Anthropology
    • Biology
    • Chemistry
    • Electronics
    • Geology
    • History
    • Mathematics
    • Nanotechnology
    • Economics
    • Paleontology
    • Physics
    • Psychology
    • Robotics
  • About Us
    • About
    • The Team
    • Advertise
    • Contribute
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact

© 2007-2021 ZME Science - Not exactly rocket science. All Rights Reserved.

Don’t you want to get smarter every day?

YES, sign me up!

Over 35,000 subscribers can’t be wrong. Don’t worry, we never spam. By signing up you agree to our privacy policy.

✕
ZME Science News

FREE
VIEW