One set of 10 articles recognized by Dr. David confirmed repeated reuse of an identical or overlapping black-and-white pictures of most cancers cells supposedly beneath completely different experimental circumstances, he stated.
“There’s no motive to have finished that except you weren’t doing the work,” Dr. David stated.
A type of papers, revealed in 2012, was formally tagged with corrections. Not like later research, which have been largely overseen by Dr. Yoon in New York, this paper was written by South Korea-based scientists, together with Changhwan Yoon, who then labored in Seoul.
An immunologist in Norway randomly chosen the paper as a part of a screening of copied information in most cancers journals. That led the paper’s writer, the medical journal Oncogene, to add corrections in 2016.
However the journal didn’t catch the entire duplicated information, Dr. David stated. And, he stated, pictures from the examine later turned up in an identical kind in one other paper that continues to be uncorrected.
Copied most cancers information stored recurring, Dr. David stated. An image of a small pink tumor from a 2017 examine reappeared in papers in 2020 and 2021 beneath completely different descriptions, he stated. A ruler included within the photos for scale wound up in two completely different positions.
The 2020 examine included one other tumor picture that Dr. David stated seemed to be a mirror picture of 1 beforehand revealed by Dr. Yoon’s lab. And the 2021 examine featured a coloration model of a tumor that had appeared in an earlier paper atop a special part of ruler, Dr. David stated.
“That is one other instance the place this seems to be deliberately finished,” Dr. Bik stated.
The researchers have been confronted with extra severe motion when the writer Elsevier withdrew the abdomen most cancers examine that had been revealed on-line in 2021. “The editors decided that the article violated journal publishing ethics pointers,” Elsevier stated.
Roland Herzog, the editor of Molecular Remedy, the journal the place the article appeared, stated that “picture duplications have been seen” as a part of a means of screening for discrepancies that the journal has since continued to beef up.
As a result of the issues have been detected earlier than the examine was ever revealed within the print journal, Elsevier’s coverage dictated that the article be taken down and no rationalization posted on-line.
However that call appeared to battle with business pointers from the Committee on Publication Ethics. Posting articles on-line “often constitutes publication,” these pointers state. And when publishers pull such articles, the rules say, they need to maintain the work on-line for the sake of transparency and submit “a transparent discover of retraction.”
Dr. Herzog stated he personally hoped that such an evidence might nonetheless be posted for the abdomen most cancers examine. The journal editors and Elsevier, he stated, are inspecting potential choices.
The editors notified Dr. Yoon and Changhwan Yoon of the article’s elimination, however neither scientist alerted Memorial Sloan Kettering, the hospital stated. Columbia didn’t say whether or not it had been instructed.
