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Abstract
In the month of April 2019, over 100 scientific articles were retracted, according to the Retraction Watch database (http://retractiondatabase.org/, accessed 15 May). None from this Journal, as it happens, although in October 2015 we were obliged to issue a notice of multiple retractions, and no journal seems immune from this problem.
The reason for our retractions was ‘author misconduct concerning the suspected fabrication of identities, as well as the impersonation of legitimate individuals, to manipulate the peer review process’. It was a ludicrously simple trick. Suppose you are submitting a manuscript on a topic in which John Smith is a renowned expert. Suggest him as a reviewer and supply ‘his’ email address for the Journal’s convenience, having already set a John Smith Hotmail email account, and then write your own review! (That won’t work anymore, by the way.)
Although these papers were retracted for author misconduct, they may have been reporting sound science. Other examples of misconduct leading to retraction include dual publication, plagiarism and salami slicing of results, none of which would necessarily invalidate the science, and fabrication or falsification of data, which obviously would. The world record for data fabrication is probably held by Yoshitaka Fujii who reported alleged studies of post-operative nausea and vomiting – the Retraction Watch database lists 180 of his articles! Closer to the topics that interest readers of Perfusion, Joachim Boldt has had 97 articles retracted. It was his ‘work’ that slowed the acceptance of a link between hydroxyethyl starches and renal dysfunction in critically ill patients.1 These disgraced doctors have had their careers ruined, tarnished the reputations of their co-authors and caused patient injury.