Questioned arthritis paper pulled

A journal retracted a linkurl:2004 paper;http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15301984?ordinalpos=5&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum this week that was among the 70,000 papers linkurl:flagged last week;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/54210/ as potentially containing plagiarized material. Last week's report, published in Nature, presented findings from a new text-search program that scanned medical literature for duplicate publication. The retrac

Written byAlison McCook
| 1 min read

Register for free to listen to this article
Listen with Speechify
0:00
1:00
Share
A journal retracted a linkurl:2004 paper;http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15301984?ordinalpos=5&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum this week that was among the 70,000 papers linkurl:flagged last week;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/54210/ as potentially containing plagiarized material. Last week's report, published in Nature, presented findings from a new text-search program that scanned medical literature for duplicate publication. The retracted paper was one of 70 that the researchers noted as highly suspicious. The journal Best Practices & Research: Clinical Rheumatology, said in a statement to the Boston Globe that linkurl:it had retracted;http://www.boston.com/news/health/blog/2008/01/british_journal_1.html a 2004 paper by Lee S. Simon that reviewed treatments for rheumatoid arthritis, which contained text from a linkurl:2003 article;http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12904092?ordinalpos=5&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum in Expert Opinion: Drug Safety by Roy Fleischmann at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. Simon declined to comment to the Globe, and spokespeople for Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where Simon is based, said they were investigating. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the authors of the Nature report linkurl:contacted the journals;http://chronicle.com/news/article/3835/journal-retracts-paper-flagged-by-search-tool and authors of the 70 papers they believed were highly suspect, and the retraction "appears to be the first result of their sleuthing."
Interested in reading more?

Become a Member of

The Scientist Logo
Receive full access to more than 35 years of archives, as well as TS Digest, digital editions of The Scientist, feature stories, and much more!
Already a member? Login Here

Meet the Author

Share
February 2026

A Stubborn Gene, a Failed Experiment, and a New Path

When experiments refuse to cooperate, you try again and again. For Rafael Najmanovich, the setbacks ultimately pushed him in a new direction.

View this Issue
Human-Relevant In Vitro Models Enable Predictive Drug Discovery

Advancing Drug Discovery with Complex Human In Vitro Models

Stemcell Technologies
Redefining Immunology Through Advanced Technologies

Redefining Immunology Through Advanced Technologies

Ensuring Regulatory Compliance in AAV Manufacturing with Analytical Ultracentrifugation

Ensuring Regulatory Compliance in AAV Manufacturing with Analytical Ultracentrifugation

Beckman Coulter Logo
Conceptual multicolored vector image of cancer research, depicting various biomedical approaches to cancer therapy

Maximizing Cancer Research Model Systems

bioxcell

Products

Sino Biological Logo

Sino Biological Pioneers Life Sciences Innovation with High-Quality Bioreagents on Inside Business Today with Bill and Guiliana Rancic

Sino Biological Logo

Sino Biological Expands Research Reagent Portfolio to Support Global Nipah Virus Vaccine and Diagnostic Development

Beckman Coulter

Beckman Coulter Life Sciences Partners with Automata to Accelerate AI-Ready Laboratory Automation

Refeyn logo

Refeyn named in the Sunday Times 100 Tech list of the UK’s fastest-growing technology companies