Fabian Wittmers @academic-integrity.bsky.social · 06/10/2026Moradi et al. 2022 (DOI: 10.1016/j.flatc.2022.100350) Top: paper, bottom: raw data. Analysis of the raw data shows that one pattern is directly derived from the other (authors claim they are two measurements). They must think I am too stupid to figure it out. pubpeer.com/publications... 032
Fabian Wittmers @academic-integrity.bsky.social · 02/10/2026All the comet assays from that lab are fake ofc., so this wasn't an accident and you can also not blame the student: pubpeer.com/publications... pubpeer.com/publications... 020
Fabian Wittmers @academic-integrity.bsky.social · 02/10/2026Zhai et al. 2018 (DOI: 10.1016/j.etap.2017.11.012) - Environmental Toxicology and Pharmacology (Elsevier) pubpeer.com/publications... 120
Fabian Wittmers @academic-integrity.bsky.social · 02/10/2026Totally legit comet assay in Elsevier's Environmental Toxicology and Pharmacology (DOI: 10.1016/j.etap.2018.01.007). Spotted this because of @sholtodavid.bsky.social's post on FBS detailing how widespread these fake assays are! pubpeer.com/publications... 092
Fabian Wittmers @academic-integrity.bsky.social · 28/09/2026Mom I am famous!!: Someone named Edward Mason seems to be a fond observer of my sleuthing work. He even uploaded a preprint to ResearchGate to come up with some grant conspiracy. That's a first for me... www.researchgate.net/publication/...researchgate.net(PDF) From Pseudonym to Publisher to Press: The Archasia belfragei/Fabian Wittmers Case and the Cross-Platform Pathway of Post- Publication ScrutinyPDF | This article reconstructs the publicly visible pathway by which one individual appeared in multiple roles within the post-publication scrutiny... | Find, read and cite all the research you need ... 161
Fabian Wittmers @academic-integrity.bsky.social · 25/09/2026In an interesting turn of events, the publisher (Emerald Publishing) claims that they are responsible for the corner clone ("manipulated image") in the article below. pubpeer.com/publications... Curious why they would deem it necessary to manipulate images like that.pubpeer.comPubPeer - Zein-oleic acid as a green, transparent and effective biofil...There are comments on PubPeer for publication: Zein-oleic acid as a green, transparent and effective biofilm for copper corrosion protection (2026) 022
Fabian Wittmers @academic-integrity.bsky.social · 23/09/2026(6/x) I think this also contradicts some of the assumptions people make about e.g. Frontiers journals. I find little difference between the (bad) quality of Elsevier & Frontiers in their RI work at this point. Some of this data will certainly change once more cases have been handled by the RI teams. 020
Fabian Wittmers @academic-integrity.bsky.social · 23/09/2026(5/x) I also want to give a shout-out to @plos.org. They have certainly had systematic issues publishing plenty of nonsense in the past, but I think their research integrity & ethics team nowadays does a great job. I rarely disagree with their decisions on corrections/retractions. 130
Fabian Wittmers @academic-integrity.bsky.social · 23/09/2026(4/x) I want to mention RSC as well. Out of the 30 reports I filed with them, all but 1 have not been addressed. ACS does address a lot more articles than most publishers, but basically never retracts anything. They have accepted corrections so blatantly covering up fraud it's frankly embarrassing. 121
Fabian Wittmers @academic-integrity.bsky.social · 23/09/2026(3/x) The picture changes quite a bit if we look at corrections, EoC's and retractions combined. T&F although remains very low. Basically: Almost nothing I reported in the last 2 years has been addressed by T&F at all. 121
Fabian Wittmers @academic-integrity.bsky.social · 23/09/2026(2/x) I see a similar (low) retraction rate for a lot of publishers. 4.7% for MDPI, 5.2 % Elsevier, 5.7% T&F and 6.5% for Springer. Wiley seems to be doing a bit better although recently they have made som concerning decisions recently. Of course a lot of cases overall are still ongoing. 120
Fabian Wittmers @academic-integrity.bsky.social · 23/09/2026(1/x) I was intrigued by what Thomas observed when comparing retraction rate by publisher, so I looked at the 3300 reports I filed over the last 2 years. Here is what I found. More thoughts on this below. (caveat: uneven sample-size with many more report to Springer/Elsevier than other publishers) 297
Reposted by Fabian WittmersFredrik Jutfelt 🐠 @jutfelt.bsky.social · 19/09/2026This is the third retraction and it comes five years after we flagged data inconsistencies and other issues in 22 papers from this team. Several papers are still under investigation. Science ran a big story about this case: www.science.org/content/arti...science.orgDoes ocean acidification alter fish behavior? Fraud allegations create a sea of doubtWhistleblowers cite eyewitness reports, data anomalies, and outsize effects in studies, but researchers deny wrongdoing 0238
Fabian Wittmers @academic-integrity.bsky.social · 19/09/2026I remember a seminar on this case you gave at GEOMAR when I was doing my Dr. there. By then (2021/22?) there was already overwhelming evidence out there to retract most of those papers.... Not surprising that journals are slow-rolling this but it's still outrageous that they get away with it. 141
Fabian Wittmers @academic-integrity.bsky.social · 19/09/2026It took a 20 months to address this, but this nonsense has finally been retracted: link.springer.com/article/10.1... 052
Fabian Wittmers @academic-integrity.bsky.social · 19/09/2026Gareth Williams from UCL looses his 6th paper co-authored with papermillers: pubpeer.com/publications... @sholtodavid.bsky.social & I flagged a lot of his catalogue last year. Likely a lot more retractions to come at this pace... No way he ever looked at the paper for even a minute: 040
Reposted by Fabian WittmersLeonid Schneider @forbetterscience.bsky.social · 15/09/2026Nathan Cofnas’s “race realism” is pseudoscience forbetterscience.com/2026/09/15/n...forbetterscience.comNathan Cofnas’s “race realism” is pseudoscience“If there’s someone having a negative impact on science, it is Cofnas, not his critics. ” – Pieter Beck 44417
Fabian Wittmers @academic-integrity.bsky.social · 15/09/2026www.youtube.com/watch?v=3R6V...youtube.comImage Fraud in Nature NeuroscienceYouTube video by Sholto David 020
Fabian Wittmers @academic-integrity.bsky.social · 14/09/2026Rao et al. 2019 (DOI: 10.1016/j.ceramint.2019.08.154) in 'Ceramics International'. Authors claim an image processing error explains why their figure shows a duplicated (and mirrored!) section of the spectrum. Makes a lot of sense, nothing to see here: pubpeer.com/publications... 051
Fabian Wittmers @academic-integrity.bsky.social · 08/09/2026Zhang et al. 2025 (DOI: 10.1016/j.fbio.2025.106189), published in 'Food Bioscience' Nice use of photoshop. More on PubPeer: pubpeer.com/publications... Yikes: 062
Fabian Wittmers @academic-integrity.bsky.social · 04/09/2026Subhan et al. 2022 (DOI: 10.1016/j.mtcomm.2022.104395) in 'Materials Today Communications'. Some interesting microscopy images in this one: pubpeer.com/publications... 031
Fabian Wittmers @academic-integrity.bsky.social · 03/09/2026Marian and Fady loose their first paper. One year after reporting their questionable art to the journal. See more of their art here: forbetterscience.com/2025/09/29/f... 065
Fabian Wittmers @academic-integrity.bsky.social · 03/09/2026Spot the difference: (spoiler: it's the materials listed in the figure legend) Alomar et al. 2026 reusing the same figure (but rotated!!) a year later: pubpeer.com/publications... 020
Fabian Wittmers @academic-integrity.bsky.social · 28/08/2026Wiley's Research Integrity team tells me: "investigation has concluded that there are no serious concerns about the citation activity" Guo has been fired/left his University after I reported his citation extortion practices, so something isn't adding up here... pubpeer.com/publications... 164
Fabian Wittmers @academic-integrity.bsky.social · 26/08/2026Hit 200 retractions today! As you see from the figs below, based on papers I flagged, there is no shortage of sketchy articles in recent years & I will stay busy. Probably many more retractions coming, given that 2685 articles I reported to journals have not yet been addressed. #researchintegrity 083
Fabian Wittmers @academic-integrity.bsky.social · 26/08/2026You know you messed up when even MDPI thinks your self-citations are bad enough to retract your paper: www.mdpi.com/2075-4418/16... 064
Reposted by Fabian WittmersSholto David @sholtodavid.bsky.social · 21/08/2026Silly correction at Cell Death & Disease. Authors elected to correct just one of these images after accepting that there was an overlapping area, but disputed the other obviously cloned parts. Who accepted the correction at Springer Nature? Sometimes it feels like there are no adults in the loop. 185
Fabian Wittmers @academic-integrity.bsky.social · 21/08/2026Classic "corner clone", generally used to cover up an old panel label when the image was previously published somewhere: Kazemzadeh et al. 2026 (DOI: 10.1108/prt-07-2025-0075) pubpeer.com/publications... 010
Fabian Wittmers @academic-integrity.bsky.social · 18/08/2026As of 2026, Sarker has started publishing on internal medicine as well; an interesting career switch after working in aquaculture / environmental sciences for their whole career: scholar.google.com/citations?hl...scholar.google.com 010
Fabian Wittmers @academic-integrity.bsky.social · 18/08/2026And retraction number 6 for University of California researcher Pallab K. Sarker & co: link.springer.com/article/10.1... But how could they have known that publishing the same data twice isn't ok, right? 110
Fabian Wittmers @academic-integrity.bsky.social · 16/08/2026Al-Gorair et al. 2023 (DOI: 10.1016/j.ijoes.2023.100245), published in Elsevier's International Journal of Electrochemical Science taking full advantage of his photoshop license! pubpeer.com/publications... #imageforensics 010
Fabian Wittmers @academic-integrity.bsky.social · 15/08/2026Still waiting for them to retract about 200 more articles with sketchy data I reported to them. Gotta start somewhere when you publish 10k+ papers a year and don't even read or review half of them I guess. retractionwatch.com/2026/08/12/b...retractionwatch.comBiology journal pulls 100+ articles and counting from special issues for peer review manipulationElsevier’s International Journal of Biological Macromolecules has issued more than 100 retractions and counting for manipulated peer review in guest-edited special issues. The publisher has said on… 0136
Fabian Wittmers @academic-integrity.bsky.social · 13/08/2026“Unless and until the authors explain why the Christchurch carriers in the NEJM paper were 20 times more likely than noncarriers to have their ages at onset adjusted,” Greicius says, “I have to assume the books were cooked.” www.science.org/content/arti...science.orgScience investigation casts doubt on genes hailed for warding off Alzheimer’s diseaseMutations found in Colombian families raised hopes for treatments. Altered patient data and suspect images call their benefits into question 010
Fabian Wittmers @academic-integrity.bsky.social · 13/08/2026It took the journal 1.5 years, but this ecotoxicology nonsense is finally gone: link.springer.com/article/10.1... 062
Fabian Wittmers @academic-integrity.bsky.social · 12/08/2026Aaaaaand retracted almost exactly 1 year later: link.springer.com/article/10.1... Yagüe probably regrets taking that co-authorship now... "The Editor-in-Chief therefore no longer has confidence in the soundness of the data reported in this article" 132
Fabian Wittmers @academic-integrity.bsky.social · 03/08/2026"When Awual was invited to comment on Wittmers’ allegations of self-citation, review milling and image duplication, he asked Nature to stop sending “foolish” e-mails." Yikes. 021
Fabian Wittmers @academic-integrity.bsky.social · 03/08/2026@katarinazimmer.bsky.social wrote a nice article on review-milling, including Rabiul Awual, who I consider a prime example: www.nature.com/immersive/d4...nature.com‘A waste of time for all of us’: caught in the crossfire of the peer-review warsReview mills — researchers who write fake referee reports with coercive citation requests — are setting off a war in academic publishing. What happens to those caught in the middle? 153
Fabian Wittmers @academic-integrity.bsky.social · 09/07/2026One could think it's crazy that you can get away with faking flow-cytometry plots for 15 years. Szczepanska et al. 2012 (DOI: 10.1007/s11033-011-0895-y), cited 81 times... Retracted after all: link.springer.com/article/10.1... (A collaborative effort with Aneurus inconstans) 011
Fabian Wittmers @academic-integrity.bsky.social · 03/07/2026Fortunately the journal agreed that MSpaint is not an acceptable research software & this article has now been retracted: link.springer.com/article/10.1... 031
Fabian Wittmers @academic-integrity.bsky.social · 01/07/2026This junk has finally been retracted. Only took 13 months.... pubpeer.com/publications... One of many papers by the PI's lab that should get retracted. Some have been 'corrected' in the last year. 021
Fabian Wittmers @academic-integrity.bsky.social · 17/05/2026"The authors disagree with the retraction" 🤡 I agree with the retraction. Looks a bit like a collage I made in in pre-school... Sharif et al. 2022 (DOI: 10.1155/2022/6530095) pubpeer.com/publications... 031
Fabian Wittmers @academic-integrity.bsky.social · 08/05/2026Deng-Guang Yu's research was too flawed even for Frontiers. MDPI however does allowed these fraudsters to correct the same type of errors: pubpeer.com/publications... Not surprising but just highlighting why you should never publish there. More on D.G. Yu: forbetterscience.com/2025/03/03/a...forbetterscience.comA stupid and foolish question“Those noises have no scientific meanings, suggest nothing, forming no any judgments, and have no any influences on the experimental results. ” – Professor Deng‐Guang Yu 033
Fabian Wittmers @academic-integrity.bsky.social · 08/05/2026Ch et al. 2023 was finally retracted. I reported this paper in Feb 2025. The journal allowed the authors to correct but the 'corrected' figures were once again littered with mistakes. 10 months later it was finally retracted.... (pubpeer.com/publications...)pubpeer.comPubPeer - Chitosan-poly(lactide-co-glycolide)/poloxamer mixed micelles...There are comments on PubPeer for publication: Chitosan-poly(lactide-co-glycolide)/poloxamer mixed micelles as a mucoadhesive thermo-responsive moxifloxacin eye drop to improve treatment efficacy in b... 051
Fabian Wittmers @academic-integrity.bsky.social · 12/04/2026Good to see Wiley retracting this abomination of a research paper: Al-Rawaf et al. 2019 (DOI: 10.1155/2019/4352470). It took one year for my complaint to get this addressed, but at least they made the correct decision in the end. pubpeer.com/publications... #ResearchIntegrity 050
Fabian Wittmers @academic-integrity.bsky.social · 20/03/2026Some might remember this story I wrote last year about the Northumbria University professor Zhanhu Guo and his unethical practices, engagement with papermillers, etc.: forbetterscience.com/2025/04/15/a... Guo has left Northumbria University 'with immediate effect'.forbetterscience.comAn unethical guide to 100.000 citations“”A number of leading researchers have published their research contributions at this Journal among them Zhanhu Guo, Zhanhu Guo, Zhanhu Guo,….” 165
Fabian Wittmers @academic-integrity.bsky.social · 05/03/2026Arguably the funniest excuse by authors ever explaining their manipulated XRD: artifacts introduced by using the machine as a printer??. Unfortunately, this was too ridiculous even for 'Scientific Reports' and the study was retracted this week: pubpeer.com/publications... 021
Fabian Wittmers @academic-integrity.bsky.social · 22/02/2026'Aquaculture Reports' recently retracted Rashid et al. 2024 (10.1016/j.aqrep.2024.102100): pubpeer.com/publications... Notable co-authors include papermiller Shafaqat Ali and a University of California Santa Cruz researcher. It's one of more than a dozen problematic papers coauthored by the pair. 152
Fabian Wittmers @academic-integrity.bsky.social · 18/02/2026This nonsense finally was retracted today: Even the title is an absolute mess in my eye, but the photoshop art (disguised as histology images) is what was the nail in the coffin. It just took 15 months to retract it, which is actually fast for Springer at this point... 0218
Fabian Wittmers @academic-integrity.bsky.social · 18/02/2026And that's retraction no. 3 for Novaes, Gonçalves, et al., (2018) exactly 1 year since reporting my concerns to Elsevier's 'Environmental Polution'. pubpeer.com/publications... This paper does not involve the postdoc supposedly responsible for the fraud in the first two... 141
Fabian Wittmers @academic-integrity.bsky.social · 15/02/2026I do think they actually took my concern seriously and did a pretty good follow-up investigation! I think this is a journal that has a dedicated EiC that has cleaned up a lot in the last 1-2 years? I might be mixing them up though. 010