The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (JACI) published numerous images that have been heavily modified. For Pubpeer examples see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7…

As I learned recently, this happened without the knowledge of the authors. As the duplications are always at the outer edges and originate from the same image, we assume that JACI publishing service inserted some cloned background” to insert”journal style” letter boxes.

Difficult to understand? Here is an example from the first reference.

JACI is known to ignore misconduct allegations while they are now slowly responding to post publication peer review.

…the duplications occurred when the publisher’s compositor vendor styled the figure panel label for print. The error did not impact the analysis, results, or conclusions of the article. The original figure appears below. The authors were not responsible for the error. Measures have been taken to prevent reoccurrence of this error for which the publisher accepts full responsibility and apologizes.

So photoshopping is no more allowed at the JACI office in Colorado– but who is accepting this “full responsibility”?

29 Aug 2021