In November 2013, Elisabeth Bik reported five papers containing what she thought was “pretty obvious” plagiarized text in Karger’s Digestive Diseases to the journal’s editor in chief. Eleven years later, one of the bunch, "Inflammatory Bowel Disease as a Risk Factor for Colorectal Cancer," has been retracted.

“Following publication, concerns were raised to our attention that portions of the text in the article have been reproduced without appropriate attribution,” the retraction notice states. “Given the extent of the insufficiently attributed text reuse this article is being retracted.”

The journal should not have taken more than a decade to retract it, Bik told. Three of the five papers she reported in 2013 were retracted the following year. The remaining article, “Carcinogenesis in Inflammatory Bowel Disease” remains in the literature and has 55 citations since its publication in 2007.

“It is strange how these five papers, all from the same journal, and all with very similar plagiarism concerns, were addressed so differently,” Bik said.

Source: https://retractionwatch.com/2024/07/26/authors-up-past-60-retractions-amid-ongoing-investigation/