by Kamal Pratap Singh | PDF
There was time when few researchers were feeling overwhelmed because of their achievements, but suddenly a paradigm shift occurred and everything changed abruptly. This is case with few professors who graduated in scientific misconduct and of some who even continued it till superannuation, some are fellows of Indian Science Academies and some are enjoying international positions. In this article we have filtered out 85 papers of biological sciences, from 01-07-2018 to 15-07-2019 from ‘’Retraction Watch database’’, a database that brings problemaic papers into attention. A total of 84 papers involving more than 300 researchers found the place in the list. Although there are many things that happened before retraction of papers but in this list the overall result was taken into consideration i.e. the paper has been retracted or not.
Recently, few names have come up in news because of bad reasons, the researchers were found to have done falsification of their data, falsification like image duplication/manipulation, data manipulation. Plagiarism for which our govt. has framed policies is just a tip of iceberg, the main accusations are against manipulators with wrong intention.
“There are many ways by which such kind of professors are hampering our growth, they are using huge public money for research consumables, they are getting salaries for doing fake research (a senior Professor in India gets minimum 1 lakh in present year) and last but not least (s)he is occupying position of much deserving candidate who can do real discoveries.
Exceptions (Papers awaiting moderation/other reasons)
Not All papers/scientists mentioned in the list the were retracted because it was sole mistake of Journal/
Publisher, following three papers listed are because of mistake of journals/publisher:
1. Molecular Biological Tools in Concrete Biodeterioration – A Mini Review.
2. A review of 45 candidate genes: association of single nucleotide polymorphism to schizophrenia risk.
3. Larvicidal effects of GC-MS fractions from leaf extracts of Cassia uniflora Mill non Spreng
Similarly there are more articles which are are yet subjected to expression of concern, for example:
1. Surveillance and genetic characterization of rotavirus strains circulating in four states of North Indian
children.
2. MP-4 contributes to snake venom neutralization by Mucuna pruriens seeds through an indirect antibody mediated mechanism .
3. Role of LOX/COX pathways in 3-nitropropionic acid-induced Huntington’s disease-like symptoms in rats:
Protective effect of licofelone.
4. Emphysematous pyelonephritis due to Aspergillus fumigatus- a case report.
5.. Not given in this list, this article was republished as corrected version, ‘‘Secondary Metabolites in the
Green Synthesis of Metallic Nanoparticles’’ by Gregory Marslin, Karthik Siram, Qaisar Maqbool, Rajendran
Kamalabai Selvakesavan, Dariusz Kruszka, Piotr Kachlicki, Gregory Franklin. Gregory Marslin from Ratnam
Institute of Pharmacy and Research, Nellore was main author of paper.
Table: List of paper reported in last 1 year on retraction watch database.