According to the magazine The Scientist, a professor from the State University of Campinas in São Paolo, Brazil, has asked the U.S. courts to put a stop to actions by the journal Diabetes. The journal has issued “expressions of concern” over several of his papers. According to the lawsuit, passed onto the Boston Business Journal, the journal Diabetes is looking into a number of papers by Mario Saad and may retract them.
The complaint states: “Most detrimental…the ADA [American Diabetes Association, which publishes Diabetes] stated that it will not consider, for publication in any ADA journal any submissions authored by any of the faculty of (Saad’s) University until the issues described in the expression of concern have been appropriately reviewed and addressed by the University.”
The science scrutiny website Retraction Watch notesthat Saad, together with some colleagues, pulled a 2009 paper published in the journal Arquivos Brasileiros de Endocrinologia & Metabologia for alleged plagiarism.
The recent “expressions of concern” regarding four papers in Diabetes were issued because of the possibility of what Retraction Watch terms “manipulated or fabricated data.” Despite this claim, Saad’s university conducted its own investigation. The conclusion of this inquiry, found, Saad stated to, Retraction Watch, “only editing mistakes that can be corrected by erratum.”
However, as Bizz Journals has reported, the American Diabetes Association has asked the university to re-open the investigation. The case is set to run for a while before resolution is achieved.
