Comment on Hindawi’s Scientific World Journal Loses its Impact Factor by Jay

It is unfortunate that in this case, the Scientific World Journal is penalized for the wrongdoing of certain editorial member of the Journal who published papers that excessively cited articles from Cell Transplantation. The strange thing is that more serious scientific frauds remain untouched by the current system. For instance, several articles are retracted even after a decade from several high impact journals for scientific fraud committed by individuals who were/are affiliated with prestigious institutions. There is no “impact” of retractions on these “high impact” journals nor is there any penalty for these individuals from their institutions or from funding bodies such as the NIH etc. Interestingly, it is customary for high powered people to dilute the gravity of the situation by writing a “note” to the journal from which these papers are retracted. There is no obvious apology or remorse expressed by the high impact journals per se. I am wondering whether the Thomson Reuters has any plan on addressing such blatant scientific frauds published in high impact journals at least in terms of not issuing impact factor.