For “Compromised Peer Review,” Wiley Journal Retracts 26 Papers.

 A Wiley journal has retracted more than two dozen articles in the last few months for peer review issues. 

 The articles, which appeared in Environmental Toxicology, have been retracted in batches, the latest on February 16-17, with previous sets in January and November.

 In part, the retraction notices for each of the 26 papers read:

The retracted papers all have authors who are affiliated with Chinese universities. Most of the corresponding authors had email domains not associated with a university or research organization, containing random sequences of letters and numbers, a potential sign of paper mill activity. 

 A representative from the Wiley press office told us in an email the journal had “identified concerning peer review patterns associated with manuscripts in progress as well as some previously published papers.”  The representative confirmed that the November and January batches were withdrawn as part of the same investigation. They did not immediately respond to our request for additional information regarding the February retractions or inform us whether they plan to continue retracting papers.

 This isn’t the first time Wiley has had mass retractions for peer review anomalies.  In June 2024, International Wound Journal retracted dozens of articles for “compromised” peer review.  Additionally, the publisher has pulled over 11,000 articles from Hindawi journals, which Wiley acquired in 2021, 

since the latter half of 2022. One or more authors expressed disagreement with the retractions in nine of the notices. The retracted article, titled "MiR-375 impairs breast cancer cell stemness by targeting the KLF5/G6PD signaling axis," was co-authored by Zheng Lufeng, an associate professor at China Pharmaceutical University in Nanjing. In an email, he informed us that the authors were not part of the peer review process. He stated, "This is the editor's responsibility." In addition, Lufeng wrote that he wished the editors would modify the notices of retraction to state that the retractions had "nothing to do" with the authors. Aside from Lufeng, none of the corresponding authors responded to our requests for comment. 

 Of the papers retracted so far, all but two were published in 2024 issues or online under Wiley’s “EarlyView” service. 

 The notices stated all articles were “retracted by agreement between the journal Editor-in-Chief” and Wiley Periodicals LLC.  Paul B.  The journal's editor-in-chief was Morgan State University associate dean Tchounwou until November. The current editor-in-chief is Christyn Bailey, a full-time editor at Wiley.  Neither Tchounwou nor Bailey responded to our request for comment.