Elia Nadia, Wager Elizabeth, Tramèr Martin R
Division of Anaesthesiology, Geneva University Hospitals, and Medical Faculty, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland ; Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine, Medical Faculty, Geneva, Switzerland.
Sideview, Princes Risborough, United Kingdom.
PLoS One. 2014 Jan 22;9(1):e85846. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0085846. eCollection 2014.
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.
Descriptive cross-sectional study.
88 articles (18 journals) by the anaesthesiologist Dr. Boldt, that warranted retraction.
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on Publication Ethics, we regarded a retraction as adequate when a retraction notice was published, linked to the retracted article, identified the title and authors of the retracted article in its heading, explained the reason and who took responsibility for the retraction, and when the retracted article was freely accessible and marked using a transparent watermark that preserved original content.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.
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.
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.
研究期刊对德国莱茵兰-普法尔茨州医学协会要求撤回88篇因伦理问题引发关注的文章的回应，并检查由此导致的撤稿是否遵循已发布的指南。
描述性横断面研究。
麻醉学家博尔特博士撰写的88篇文章（发表于18种期刊），这些文章需要撤回。
根据出版伦理委员会的建议，当撤稿通知发布，与被撤稿文章相关联，在标题中注明被撤稿文章的标题和作者，解释撤稿原因以及谁对撤稿负责，并且被撤稿文章可免费获取并使用透明水印进行标记以保留原始内容时，我们认为撤稿是充分的。两位作者独立提取数据（2013年1月），并在撤稿不充分的情况下联系主编和出版商进行澄清。
五篇文章（6%）符合充分撤稿的所有标准。九篇文章（10%）未被撤回（未发布撤稿通知，全文未标记）。79篇（90%）撤稿通知已发布，76篇（86%）可免费获取，但只有15篇（17%）是完整的。73篇（83%）全文文章被标记为已撤稿，其中14篇（16%）有不透明水印隐藏了部分原始内容，11篇（13%）所有原始内容均被删除。59篇（67%）已撤稿文章可免费获取。一位主编称个人问题是撤稿不完整的原因，八位归咎于他们的出版商。两家出版商称受到博尔特博士共同作者的法律威胁，这阻止了他们撤回文章。
文章撤稿指南未得到充分遵循。需要明确出版商在撤稿过程中的作用，并且需要制定标记已撤稿文章的标准。目前尚不清楚应由谁来检查撤稿是否妥善进行。需要法律保障措施以允许违背作者意愿撤回文章。
