Every journal deals with article retractions – it’s an ugly truth of the business. At Cureus we strive to produce a transparent publishing process and part of that is dealing with retractions. Cureus was recently issued its first retraction notice. As you can see from the formal statement below, the article was not merely retracted, but was also removed due to legal reasons. Once notified of the objections, we immediately removed the article and began work to display retractions in a way that enables readers to learn why the article was retracted and (if there are no legal restrictions) continue on and read the offending article.

After coordinating with both authors and the offended parties, we are now in a position to provide additional information as to why the article was not only retracted, but removed. Again, we recognize and appreciate the need for transparency when it comes to medical science and our new system for displaying retractions is another step towards the goal of complete transparency throughout the publishing process.

Our formal statement on the matter, which can also be seen here, where the article was originally posted, reads as follows:

It has been brought to our attention that the article, “Novel Determinants of Tumour Radiosensitivity Post Large Scale Compound Library” was published without the consent of the study’s Principal Investigator, Dr Geoffrey Higgins of Oxford University, and that the data included is commercially sensitive. Given the weight of evidence offered by the Principal Investigator and the Head of Department at the University of Oxford, where this research was carried out, the article has been withdrawn from the journal.

Related article: Retraction Watch