We, the Editor and Publisher of the Journal of Maternal-Fetal and Neonatal Medicine, have retracted the following article:
A. M. Darwish, H. A. Fouly, W. H. Saied & E. Farah (2019) Lactoferrin plus health education versus total dose infusion (TDI) of low-molecular weight (LMW) iron dextran for treating iron deficiency anemia (IDA) in pregnancy: a randomized controlled trial, The Journal of Maternal-Fetal & Neonatal Medicine, 32:13, 2214–2220, DOI: 10.1080/14767058.2018.1429396.
Since publication, significant concerns have been raised about the integrity of the data and the reported results in the article. Concerns have also been raised about unexplained overlap between this article and another study published previously (online in 2017) by the same corresponding author:
A. M. Darwish, E. E. Khalifa, E. Rashad & E. Farghally (2019) Total dose iron dextran infusion versus oral iron for treating iron deficiency anemia in pregnant women: a randomized controlled trial, The Journal of Maternal-Fetal & Neonatal Medicine, 32:3, 398–403, DOI: 10.1080/14767058.2017.1379988.
Specifically, these two studies contain 27 identical values in the baseline table and 38 identical values in the outcome tables. Upon query, the authors have not provided responses to our concerns or supplied their original data for review. As significant concerns about the integrity of the article remain, we are therefore retracting the article. The authors have been notified of the retraction.
We have been informed in our decision-making by our policy on publishing ethics and integrity and the COPE guidelines on retractions.
The retracted article will remain online to maintain the scholarly record, but it will be digitally watermarked on each page as “Retracted”.