JAMA Retracts 2 Zhihao Lei Letters Over False Ph.D. Claims
Updated
Updated · Retraction Watch · Jul 14
JAMA Retracts 2 Zhihao Lei Letters Over False Ph.D. Claims
1 articles · Updated · Retraction Watch · Jul 14
Summary
Two letters by Zhihao Lei in JAMA Oncology and JAMA Pediatrics were retracted last month after he acknowledged falsely listing himself as a Cornell Ph.D. and implying he worked there.
Eight of at least 35 letters Lei published over the past year identified him as a Ph.D., though he then held only a bachelor’s degree and was enrolled as a Cornell master’s student.
Six other letters with the same false credential remain uncorrected, while Elsevier, Sage and the Journal of the National Cancer Institute said reviews or ethics investigations are underway.
Lei said the problem was mistaken author metadata rather than fabrication, falsification or plagiarism, and said he had alerted journals himself after discovering the error.
The case widens scrutiny of prolific journal-letter publishing in medicine, where Lei’s output spanned topics from ICU care to breast cancer and some titles showed an LLM-like formula.