China's 2021 English paper retraction reached 2004, accounting for 60% of the world's
Written by | Yan Xiaoliu
Source | "Medical Community" public account
2021 is the year of "strict management" of medical research integrity. As of December 29, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Health Commission and other departments issued 17 batches of normalized circulars, involving 405 cases of academic fraud and misconduct. According to the information of the National Health Commission, the relevant cases were first issued and reported by medical institutions for self-examination and self-correction.
The "medical community" inventory found that according to the hospital where the corresponding author is located, the relevant cases involved 144 medical institutions in 21 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions in China.
After the self-inspection, Shandong reported the largest number
Counting the 17 batches of announcements, the number of medical institutions involved in Shandong Province is the largest, reaching 48. It is followed by Zhejiang and Jiangsu, with 16 and 12 respectively.
From the self-inspection of various hospitals, the First People's Hospital of Jining City, Shandong Province, investigated and dealt with the highest number of cases, a total of 104 cases, accounting for 1/4 of the total number of national notifications.
It is followed by the Sino-Japanese Friendship Hospital of Jilin University, which investigated and handled 23 related cases. The third largest number is the Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University in Shandong Province, with 16 cases.
In addition to private colleges, Shandong has 7 undergraduate colleges, including Shandong University Qilu Medical College, Qingdao University Qingdao Medical College, Shandong First Medical University, Weifang Medical College, Binzhou Medical College, Jining Medical College and Shandong University of Traditional Chinese Medicine. In the 17 batches of notifications, all of the above-mentioned institutions have affiliated hospitals that have been named.
Academic fraud also exists in well-known medical institutions. For example, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, the Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine, and Beijing Anzhen Hospital affiliated to Capital Medical University all reported 1 case of scientific research fraud. These three hospitals ranked 1st, 16th and 47th respectively in the comprehensive list of the "2020 Fudan Edition Of China Hospital Rankings".
According to the announcement of the Ministry of Science and Technology, there are one or more problems in medical research fraud, including fabricating research processes, falsifying and tampering with research data, tampering with pictures and charts, buying and selling papers or ghostwriting, forging the email address of corresponding authors, and improperly signing names.
In the 119 cases of paper fraud as of December 1, 2021, 20 of the 293 people involved were revoked their titles, and 156 people were disqualified from promotion and titles for a certain number of years.
There are also "lifetime out" people. The two circulars of the Ministry of Science and Technology on October 9 and October 29, 2021, both involved papers by Wang Yang as the first author of the China-Japan Friendship Hospital of Jilin University, and both had the behavior of tampering with data, investing on behalf of and purchasing experimental data. Wang Yang was punished by "lifetime cancellation of the qualification for the declaration of science and technology plan projects (special projects, funds, etc.), and lifetime ban on participating in the qualification review of graduate school admissions".
In another batch of processing results of the Ministry of Science and Technology, Wang Qiang of Shandong First Medical University, as the first author, was found to have 1 paper that had the behavior of buying and selling data. He was revoked from the qualification of chief physician and withdrew the evaluation materials of the Famous Old Chinese Medicine Talent Project in Shandong Province.
The public name "Xie Heli" pointed out that in 2020, only 10 people in Shandong Province were rated as provincial famous old Chinese medicine doctors. Above the provincial famous old Chinese medicine, it is a national famous old Chinese medicine doctor and a master of traditional Chinese medicine. Directly losing the opportunity to select the selection shows the severity of the punishment.
Frequent discovery, the power of AI?
A large number of fake papers were discovered, or the Ministry of Science and Technology established an active discovery mechanism and developed intelligent tools.
The Ministry of Science and Technology announced that intelligent tools monitor and analyze academic papers published in recent years, timely discover clues of academic misconduct in papers, and submit them to relevant competent departments and units for investigation and handling in accordance with regulations.
Previously, many large publishers have begun to experiment with smart tools to combat academic misconduct. In 2015, publisher Springer Nature developed a paper fraud detection AI (Artificial Intelligence).
However, the "Xie Spiral" article pointed out that the papers that were found were so concentrated in some regions and hospitals, it was likely that a paper factory was ended.
On February 24, 2020, professional academic "counterfeiter" Elizabeth Bick and her team found more than 400 fake papers, with extremely similar titles and pictures, which seemed to be produced by the same paper factory.
According to the analysis of "Xie Spiral", almost all of these papers come from China, including many top three medical institutions. The largest number of papers suspected of falsifying are the following 6 local tertiary hospitals:
1. The First People's Hospital of Jining City: 101 articles;
2. China-Japan Friendship Hospital of Jilin University: 59 papers;
3. Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University: 23 papers;
4. Linyi Central Hospital: 16 papers;
5. The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University: 16 papers;
6. Affiliated Hospital of Jining Medical College: 12 papers;
In the academic misconduct cases reported in China in 2021, some medical institutions and some articles highly coincide with the content exposed by Elizabeth Bicker.
In addition, on October 28, 2021, the academic journal Journal of Cellular Biochemistry published a supplement containing a retraction statement of 129 papers — almost the entire content of the supplement.
Christian Bell, a pathologist at johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany, said the supplement focused on papers that were accused of being related to the paper factory, were fraudulent and retracted.
The China Youth Daily survey found that the authors of the 129 retracted articles were mainly doctors, involving Chinese mainland 77 hospitals and 6 universities. The author's units are concentrated in Shandong and Jilin and other places, only the First People's Hospital of Jining City has 13 articles withdrawn, jilin university China-Japan Friendship Hospital and Jilin University Second Hospital have 7 and 5 articles respectively.
Fraud continues, all because of the title?
Data company "April" issued a summary that in 2021, the Ministry of Science and Technology once again took the initiative to carry out random spot checks of the annual national science and technology plan projects, and the National Health Commission and other institutions have also investigated and reported some academic misconduct cases.
Under the "heavy blow", China's 2021 English papers were withdrawn 2004 times, accounting for more than 60% of the total number of global retractions, most of which involved scientific research integrity. Among them, there are about 813 papers funded by funding (accounting for 41%), involving more than 500 national natural science foundations and about 80 major national projects.
These retractions involved about 396 journals, of which 3 were withdrawn in batches of more than 100 articles, including 1 medical journal.
This fully reflects the great importance attached by relevant ministries and commissions of the state to the construction of scientific research integrity, and adheres to no forbidden areas, full coverage, and zero tolerance.
On January 27, 2021, the National Health Commission, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine revised the Code of Integrity and Related Conduct for Medical Research in conjunction with relevant laws and regulations.
On June 3, the Department of Science and Technology Education of the National Health Commission issued eight notices related to scientific research integrity, reiterating the need to strengthen the construction of medical research integrity.
The two old documents jointly issued by multiple departments, the "Notice of the "Five Prohibitions" for the Publication of Academic Papers" and the "Code of Conduct for Medical Research Integrity and Related Behavior", have also been re-issued by various institutions, requiring all units to establish an investigation and handling mechanism for academic misconduct and carry out self-examination.
The "five no's" include: no "third party" is allowed to write papers, no "third party" is allowed to submit papers, no "third party" is allowed to modify the content of the paper, no false peer reviewer information is not allowed, and no paper signature specifications are violated. "Third Party" as used herein refers to any institution or individual other than authors and periodicals.
"As one of these doctors, I implore you to spare us in time. You exposed us, but there are thousands of people doing the same thing. As long as the rules of the game remain the same, similar behavior is bound to continue. This time you exposed it, we probably can't even keep our jobs. For the Group of Chinese Doctors, especially our group of small characters, please be considerate. We really had no choice, please! In January 2020, Elizabeth Bicker team member TigerBB8 (Chinese pseudonym "Playing Tiger") received such a private message on Weibo. Earlier, he mentioned on Weibo that he noticed the problem paper and hoped that the relevant authors would be ready to respond positively.
China Youth Daily reported that the sender claimed to be one of the authors of the problem papers. He wrote in a private message: "As a small character among countless doctors, I was dismissive of [counterfeiting]. But the arm can not twist the thigh, there is no thesis, doomed to not be promoted upwards, the title can not go up, it is difficult to support the family. I also wanted to have a whole chunk of time doing some research myself, but I couldn't. During the day, outpatient and surgical operations, and after work, children are also managed. It's just a little time after 10 p.m., but it's not enough, because scientific research takes a whole block of time. ”
"The moment the paper was sent, it was already too late." "Playing the tiger" replied on Weibo, the doctor does not issue papers, do not promote the title will not be able to go on, even if you want to issue papers, you do not have to fake, as long as you have the heart, the grassroots clinic can also write a very good paper.
It is worth noting that the professional title evaluation of doctors is decoupling from papers. In August 2021, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, the National Health Commission, and the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine jointly issued the Guiding Opinions on Deepening the Reform of the Title System for Health Professionals and Technicians, requiring the elimination of the "only papers, only academic qualifications, only awards, only 'hats'" tendency in the past title evaluation, and not to take papers, scientific research projects, awards, study experience abroad (outbound), doctoral degrees, etc. as a necessary condition for declaration.
The opinions also propose to establish and improve the evaluation indicators of clinicians' practice ability. Take the outpatient working hours, the number of patients admitted to the hospital, the number of surgeries, etc. as the declaration conditions; the coverage of diagnosis and treatment of diseases, the coverage of surgery or operation, the number of single-disease diagnosis and treatment cases, the average number of hospitalization days, the average cost of times, the number of complications, etc. are taken as important indicators, and the clinicians' practice ability and level are scientifically and accurately evaluated.
Implement the system of representative works of achievements, surgical videos, nursing cases, epidemiological investigation reports, emergency response reports, health standards, technical specifications, technical patents, etc. can participate in the review as performance results.
Source:
1. In less than half a year, 12 batches of doctors' papers were exposed! The Ministry of Science and Technology uses AI to check the !?. Deconvolution
2. Integrity of medical research. Department of Science and Technology Education
3. Establishment of scientific research integrity. Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China
4. There are no papers in this issue of the academic journal. China Youth Daily
5. Sina Weibo @ Play Tiger
6. Summary of 2021 paper retraction: more than 2,000 retracted papers, involving more than 500 items of the National Natural Science Foundation of China. April iplagiarism
Source: Medical community
Editor-in-charge: Xu Liyan
Proofreader: Zang Hengjia
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