解螺旋公众号·陪伴你科研的第2919天
本文信息来源:retraction、dovepress官网等
At the authors request, the Editor and Publisher of Cancer Management and Research wish to retract the published article. Following publication of the Expression of Concern for their article, the authors contacted the journal but were unable to provide a satisfactory explanation for any similarities observed between tumor figures presented in this article, and tumor figures presented in articles by different authors groups. In addition, the authors were unable to provide adequate original data for their study and requested to retract the article.Our decision-making was informed by our policy on publishing ethics and integrity and the COPE guidelines on retraction.The retracted article will remain online to maintain the scholarly record, but it will be digitally watermarked on each page as “Retracted”.尽管在公告中编辑部表示此次撤稿是应作者的要求,但编辑部也指出了一个事实那就是自2021年10月15日,编辑部与出版商对该论文的科学性与实验结果可靠性表达关注(Expression of Concern)后,作者一直无法提供足够的原始数据。想必看到这里大家就都懂了:在编辑部与出版商收到论文内容可能涉嫌造假后联系了作者要求其提供原始数据自证。当然最终的自证结果是,经历了长达三个月的battle,作者主动要求撤稿。
引起杂志方关注甚至要在撤稿公告中特意强调的问题究竟是什么呢?
同一把尺子出现在了6家毫不相干医院的总计6篇论文中。具体情况如下:
Biochemical and Biophysical Reseatch CommunicationsCancer Management and Research这6篇论文发布于4本不同的期刊,算上今年1月份撤稿的那篇,其中三篇已撤稿。现在已经过了3个月。那些尚未被撤稿的论文情况有没有发生任何变化呢?首先,是那两篇未被撤稿也未曾被期刊方面表达关注的论文:它们分别来自BBRC(Biochemical and Biophysical Reseatch Communications,IF:3.575)和Oncology Reports(IF:3.906)。值得注意的是Oncology Reports在去年的中科院预警期刊名单上,预警等级是中危,今年已下榜。剩下的那一篇论文虽然未撤稿,但收到了来自期刊编辑部和出版商Dovepress的表达关注(Expression of Concern)。不过小编注意到这篇论文收到表达关注的日期与引起大家注意到此事的论文是同一天:都是2021年10月15日。不过这篇尚未撤稿的论文是来自Dovepress的另一本期刊:OncoTargets and Therapy。OncoTargets and Therapy今年仍是中科院的预警期刊,预警等级为中危。很明显,出版社表达关注半年后,此事仍未有任何进展。不过6家单位在同一时期使用同一把直尺,这样的共享直尺不算巅峰。11家单位共享同一张桌子、同一块桌布以及同一组实验标本才是目前已知的“共享科研”巅峰!
这次大型“共享科研”涉及:台州市立医院、中国人民解放军成都军区总医院、榆林市中医院、山东聊城市人民医院、陕西中医药大学(还被自家学生拼成了山西中医药大学)、武汉大学、郑州大学、中国医科大学、兰州大学、同济大学和西南医科大学。其中有3家三甲医院、3所985大学以及1所211。这11篇发布于2018年左右的论文目前还有两篇尚未被撤稿,这两篇没有撤稿的论文分别是同济大学发表于期刊BBRC和山东聊城市人民医院发表于Oncology Research。
这些共享实验设施的论文让小编想起了上个月解螺旋报道过的一个学术黑洞。我们上个月报道的那篇论文的通讯作者是这样回复质疑者的:
"The laboratory equipment of our institution is inadequate. We can only send the pathological sections to a shared platform of a laboratory in China, and their staff will help us scan the pathological sections and send the result figures to us. I have put the problem feedback to the principal of sharing platform of laboratory, after investigation, they appear such problems because the mark in the pathological section of handwriting and the color was not clear, then workers mistakenly sent other institutions pathological results to me, eventually led me to use other people's experimental figures in my manuscript. Now the authors of the other institution have also contacted me and asked me to retract my manuscript as soon as possible to avoid damaging their work."
我们机构缺乏实验设备。 我们只能将病理切片发送到中国的一个实验室的共享平台,他们的工作人员会帮助我们扫描病理切片并将结果图发送给我们。 我已经把问题反馈给了实验室共享平台负责人,经过调查,他们发现这个问题是因为病理切片的手写标记与颜色不清晰,然后工作人员错误地将其他机构的病理结果发给了我,最终导致我在手稿中使用了其他人的实验数据。 现在涉及的其他机构的作者也联系了我,希望我尽快撤稿,以免损坏他们的研究成果。对此质疑者Actinopolyspora biskrensis表示:
You mentioned a 'shared platform of a laboratory' was responsible for making this mistake. Would you mind sharing the name of this institute; if they are responsible for such mistakes your paper, they may have made mistakes in many others.
您提到那个“实验室的共享平台”应当为这个错误负责。你愿意分享一下这个机构的名字吗?如果他们造成了你论文中的这些错误,那么他们可能引发大量论文发生差错。
看起来似乎也许真的存在这样的“实验共享平台”?
大家又是怎么看的呢?欢迎在评论区留下你的想法