Retraction of the Week – Lifetime Ban for Plagiarism

Each week, OTW publishes a recent scientific journal retraction arising from shoddy, lazy or downright fraudulent research. These are examples of researchers who omitted or falsified data, used data out of context or employed such awful logic that they were forced to retract their study.

These examples are collected by Retraction Watch and we are honored to be able to present them with permission from Retraction Watch to our readers. Retraction Watch was started in 2010 by Adam Marcus and Ivan Oransky, M.D.

Indian Journal of Dermatology Retractions and Lifetime Ban

A medical journal in India has imposed a professional death sentence on a group of Tunisian researchers by forever banning them from publishing in the journal, “on all future articles in which they are assigned/mentioned as an author or coauthor.”

Retraction Watch’s (RW) Ivan Oransky, M.D., reported on June 20, 2012 that the Indian Journal of Dermatology (IJD) found a group of Tunisian researchers guilty of plagiarism. Last August, Oransky said RW brought the news that the IJD had banned the researchers from publishing in the journal for five years because they had plagiarized in a 2009 study. 

Oransky writes that the journal’s editors had found another case where the researchers had plagiarized, and were now banned for life.

Here’s what the IJD editor wrote:

In the background of serial academic dishonesty, the authors were initially served with a show-cause notice and on receipt of their clarification (deemed inadequate), based on unanimous decision of the Editorial Board, a complete restriction on the part of the journal on all future articles in which they are assigned/mentioned as an author/coauthor was imposed and the corresponding author was communicated accordingly.

Now the second article is also being formally retracted from the online and offline version of the journal.

IJD maintains a strict principle of absolute zero tolerance in matters like these.

The journal unconditionally apologizes to all concerned for this unintended oversight on its part.

The following articles were retracted:

1. 
   

   Jalel A, Soumaya GS, Hamdaoui MH. Dermatology life quality index scores in vitiligo: Reliability and validity of the Tunisian version. Indian J Dermatol 2009; 54(4):330-3

Aghaei S, Sodaifi M, Jafari P, Mazharinia N, Finlay AY. DLQI scores in vitiligo: reliability and validity of the Persian version. BMC Dermatology; 4: 8. Published online 4 August 2004

It has come to our notice that almost the same set of authors in that same year published another article (as above) which contains identical introduction, identical table and most of the discussion of an article published in Acta Dermatovenerol Alp Panonica Adriat in 2008 cited below.

Arican O, Kurutas EB. Oxidative stress in the blood of patients with active localized vitiligo. Acta Dermatovenerol Alp Panonica Adriat. 2008 Mar; 17(1):12 -6.

Retraction Watch has written about bans before and is in favor of them. Although, Oransky notes, “the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) is against them. RW has heard of one ban of ten years but this is the first time they’ve heard of a lifetime ban.

COPE, a forum for editors and publishers of peer-reviewed journals, was established in 1997 by a small group of medical journal editors in the UK but now has over 7000 members worldwide from all academic fields. Membership is open to editors of academic journals and others interested in publication ethics. Several major publishers (including Elsevier, Wiley–Blackwell, Springer, Taylor & Francis, Palgrave Macmillan and Wolters Kluwer) have signed up their journals as COPE members. COPE also advises editors on how to handle cases of research and publication misconduct.

The Indian Journal of Dermatology has been published since 1955 and is, according to the journal, the oldest living journal of dermatology in Asia and one of the oldest peer-reviewed journals dedicated to this particular discipline.