Question: Becoming the author of a scientific article thanks to 'buying'

A scientist in his Associate Professorship application had two international articles whose abstracts and titles had previously been advertised for sale on a Russian website.

Become the author of a scientific paper that was once sold

In April, the prestigious Science magazine published an article introducing a new, noteworthy study by Dr. Anna Abalkina, a Russian scientist currently studying at the Free University of Berlin, Germany. Accordingly, Dr. Anna Abalkina analyzed information in more than 1,000 advertisements posted on the website 123mi.ru, thereby discovering a market for buying and selling manuscripts of scientific articles. Evidence of the buying and selling is the information matching between the advertisements and scientific articles published later in international scientific journals.

Comparison of the advertisement posted on 123mi.ru (left) and the title and summary of the published article by author D.C (right)

Duong Tu

According to Dr. Abalkina, the website 123mi.ru is a place that provides article brokerage services (i.e., buying the right to be the author of a scientific article) operated by the Russian-based company International Publisher LLC. To attract customers to buy articles, the website 123mi.ru posts detailed information about articles that it says have been or will be accepted for publication by journals, including the article's topic, the number of authors, and sometimes the article's abstract.

The article sales ads also mention the prestige and influence of the journal where the article will be published, as well as whether the journal is indexed in Scopus or ISI. However, this article sales service does not reveal the name of the journal (where the scientific article will be published). Customers only know the name of the journal after paying for the article. International Publisher also said that they split the sale fee with some journals to keep them in the article sales chain.

Notably, according to Dr. Abalkina’s research, Vietnam is in the top 10 countries that buy articles from the “factory” International Publisher with 9 author positions purchased. Among them, we pay attention to the name of author D.C, whose work address is at a Vietnamese military hospital.

In the list of statistics accompanying Dr. Abalkina's research, there are 2 articles by Mr. D.C., including the article "Clopidogrel as an oral antiaggregant in ischemic heart disease" published in 2020 in the Journal of Global Pharma Technology (this journal was removed from Scopus in 2020 due to concerns about unusual publishing behavior), temporarily called article 1; and the article "Gender-based differences in the effectiveness of antihypertensive therapy with losartan compared with enalapril" published on February 1, 2021 in the Bangladesh Journal of Medical Science, temporarily called article 2.

In both articles, Mr. D.C. is the first and corresponding author, along with 2-3 authors from Russia. According to Dr. Abalkina's research, these are 2 articles that were once sold on the website 123mi.ru.

Why does a vibrant market for 'buying and selling' scientific articles exist?

Specifically, screenshots of the 123mi.ru website from May 2 to July 2, 2020 show that Mr. D.C.'s article 1 was put up for sale before it was published in the Journal of Global Pharma Technology. The title and abstract at the time the article was put up for sale were almost identical to those when the article was officially published. Similarly, article 2, with an almost unchanged title, was put up for sale at the latest on February 26, 2020, about 1 year before the article was published.

To apply for PGS

According to our research, Mr. D.C. has just been appointed as Associate Professor, specializing in cardiology, and is currently the head of a military hospital in the south. Previously, he had applied for Associate Professor in 2019 and 2020, but was not accepted. In 2021, Mr. D.C. continued to apply for Associate Professor with more international articles than in 2020, including 2 articles No. 63 (article 1) and No. 68 (article 2) mentioned above. Thanks to that, Mr. Tr.D.C.'s application was approved by the State Council of Professors. On June 17, Mr. D.C. was announced the decision to appoint him as Associate Professor.

In the two articles by Mr. D.C. that Dr. Anna Abalkina said showed signs of being purchased from International Publisher LLC, Mr. D.C. was the only Vietnamese author, the remaining co-authors were all Russian, and the two articles were even written by two different groups of authors.

What did the person suspected of buying the article say?

Speaking to Thanh Nien Newspaper reporter, Mr. D.C said he knew nothing about 123mi.ru and denied that he bought the two articles mentioned above. Regarding the fact that the titles and summaries of his two published articles were the same as the previous sale on 123mi.ru, he said he did not know why.

When asked why the names of Russian co-authors were included in those two articles, he explained that he had a relationship with a group of friends who were former Vietnamese students studying in Russia, so he sent the articles to this group and asked them to find editors and proofreaders. “I sent articles 63 and 68 to the other side, and asked them to edit and proofread them. The two sides exchanged emails many times before a complete manuscript was created. A scientific work involves the participation of many people, including editors and proofreaders, and they have the right to have their names on the article. I am a specialist, a practicing doctor, and cannot be good at everything, so asking teammates, teachers, friends, etc. to contribute to the article is normal,” Mr. D.C. said.

The truth of the list of 100,000 most influential scientists in the world

When asked why he collaborated with two different groups on two articles (and not with either group on any other article), Mr. D.C. replied: “I sent the article there, I don’t know who participated in editing it! But when the editors finished editing it, they added the author’s name, so I have to respect that, I can’t refuse.” When the reporter asked, “You didn’t send it to a specific individual scientist, but to a group of people or an organization?”, Mr. D.C. confirmed: “That’s right!”.

However, according to the content of article No. 68 (1 Vietnamese author, 3 Russian authors), the authors conducted a clinical trial with the drugs losartan and enalapril on 100 patients at Military Hospital X in 2019. In response to the question, if the research was conducted at a Vietnamese hospital, there should be more Vietnamese authors, not just one person, Mr. D.C explained: "It is true that with a research project, we have to divide it up to do it. But when we publish it, we have to give in to each other. If we publish it all together, how many points will we get? So we take turns focusing on each other, that is the reality of research in Vietnam."

Explaining about article No. 63 (1 Vietnamese author, 2 Russian authors), which was a clinical trial with clopidogrel on 557 patients in Russia and Vietnam in 2018 - 2019, Mr. D.C. initially said that he sent the outline to the Russian group for comments, then did the research at a hospital in Vietnam. But when asked why the project was introduced as being conducted on Russian patients, Mr. D.C. said: "When I finished writing, I sent it to Russia, they added the data they did there."

383 more teachers recognized as professors and associate professors

The Chairman of the State Council of Professors (SCO) signed Decision No. 88/QD-HDGSNN to recognize the qualifications for the title of Professor and Associate Professor in 2022. Specifically, 34 teachers were recognized as meeting the qualifications for the title of Professor and 349 teachers as meeting the qualifications for the title of Associate Professor. A total of 383 teachers were recognized as meeting the qualifications for the title of Professor and Associate Professor in the 2022 review period.

According to the Ministry of Education and Training, the country has 232 universities, not including police and military schools. According to Thanh Nien Newspaper statistics, in 2022, there will be 8 police schools and 17 military schools enrolling university students. Thus, it is estimated that the country has 257 universities. With the number of teachers recognized as meeting the standards of Professor and Associate Professor in this year's review, on average, every 6-7 schools will have one more Professor, every 10 schools will have 13-14 more Associate Professors.

According to the Ministry of Education and Training, currently, the teaching staff has more than 4,300 associate professors and 550 professors. Thus, on average, each school only has about 2 professors and about 16 - 17 associate professors.

Regarding whether the studies were approved by the hospital's ethics board, Mr. D.C. said that it was not until 2020 that his hospital had an ethics board (and he was the chairman), so previous studies were not approved by the ethics board. "Previously, we still did research that did not affect patients, but collected information from actual medical examination and treatment, without doing anything else, without harming patients," Mr. D.C. said, then affirmed that all studies were archived in the trial records at the hospital where he worked. (to be continued)

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/nghi-van-tro-thanh-tac-gia-bai-bao-khoa-hoc-nho-mua-1851524346.htm