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. 2014 Jan 22;9(1):e85846.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0085846. eCollection 2014.

Fate of articles that warranted retraction due to ethical concerns: a descriptive cross-sectional study

Nadia Elia  1 , Elizabeth Wager  2 , Martin R Tramèr  3
Affiliations

Fate of articles that warranted retraction due to ethical concerns: a descriptive cross-sectional study

Nadia Elia et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Objective: To study journals' responses to a request from the State Medical Association of Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany, to retract 88 articles due to ethical concerns, and to check whether the resulting retractions followed published guidelines.

Design: Descriptive cross-sectional study.

Population: 88 articles (18 journals) by the anaesthesiologist Dr. Boldt, that warranted retraction.

Method: According to the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics, we regarded a retraction as adequate when a retraction notice was published, linked to the retracted article, identified the title and authors of the retracted article in its heading, explained the reason and who took responsibility for the retraction, and when the retracted article was freely accessible and marked using a transparent watermark that preserved original content. Two authors extracted data independently (January 2013) and contacted editors-in-chief and publishers for clarification in cases of inadequate retraction.

Results: Five articles (6%) fulfilled all criteria for adequate retraction. Nine (10%) were not retracted (no retraction notice published, full text article not marked). 79 (90%) retraction notices were published, 76 (86%) were freely accessible, but only 15 (17%) were complete. 73 (83%) full text articles were marked as retracted, of which 14 (16%) had an opaque watermark hiding parts of the original content, and 11 (13%) had all original content deleted. 59 (67%) retracted articles were freely accessible. One editor-in-chief stated personal problems as a reason for incomplete retractions, eight blamed their publishers. Two publishers cited legal threats from Dr. Boldt's co-authors which prevented them from retracting articles.

Conclusion: Guidelines for retracting articles are incompletely followed. The role of publishers in the retraction process needs to be clarified and standards are needed on marking retracted articles. It remains unclear who should check that retractions are done properly. Legal safeguards are required to allow retraction of articles against the wishes of authors.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: MRT is the editor-in-chief and NE is an associate editor of the European Journal of Anaesthesiology which has retracted eight articles by Boldt. EW is an author of the COPE guidelines on retraction and is a self-employed consultant who provides training on publication ethics, she was Chair of COPE (2009-12) this was an unpaid position, she is a member of the Ethics Committee of the BMJ and has received travel expenses from COPE and the BMJ. She has acted as a paid consultant to BMJ Group, Wiley-Blackwell, and Elsevier and been paid to speak at meetings run by Springer. This does not affect the authors' adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials. The authors declare that they received no support from any organization for the submitted work; have no financial relationships with any other organizations that might have an interest in the submitted work in the previous three years; and no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Flow chart.
1Retraction notice linked to the retracted article, identified as a retraction in the table of content of the journal, included the title and authors of the retracted article in its heading, explained who took the responsibility for retraction, and provided reasons for retraction. 2Watermark transparent, not opaque, and the original text preserved. 3Through PubMed or alternative websites.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Transparent watermarks.
Left panel: Anesthesia and Analgesia. Right panel: Canadian Journal of Anesthesia.
Figure 3
Figure 3. Opaque watermark.
Journal of Cardiothoracic and Vascular Anesth.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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References

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