Ohio State University's Carlo Croce has retracted a commentary he wrote for Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology over censorship concerns, Retraction Watch reports.
In the News & Views article, Croce discussed a paper that appeared in Cell in the spring that found that cancer-associated chromosomal translocations give rise to circular RNAs and that those fusion circular RNAs have oncogenic properties. While Croce critiqued the paper's experimental approach, he also criticized Cell for even publishing the paper. That's where he tells Retraction Watch that he ran afoul of Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology editors.
Croce says that, though his commentary was already published online, editors wanted to remove the paragraph in which he criticizes Cell for the print version. "The choice for me was either to publish the revised version or to withdraw the paper. I chose the latter," Croce tells Retraction Watch, adding that "I withdrew the paper because I am not accustomed to be censored."
The retraction notice says the commentary has been removed due to "irreconcilable differences with the journal editors over correction of the text."
According to Retraction Watch, Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology says it can't comment beyond the retraction notice and Cell says it hasn't been in touch with Croce or the other journal and that it "has no objections to the paragraph in question."