Retraction: Comparative study of the ciliary body and iris morphology in the anterior eye chamber of five different vertebrate classes

RETRACTION: A.A. Seleem, and A.H. Badr, ‘Comparative Study of The Ciliary Body and Iris Morphology In The Anterior Eye Chamber of Five Different Vertebrate Classes’, Anatomia Histologia Embryologia 53, no. 3 (2024): e13052, https://doi.org/10.1111/ahe.13052.

The above article, published online on 12 May 2024 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com), has been retracted by agreement between the journal Editor-in-Chief, Fred Sinowatz; and Wiley-VCH GmbH, Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. The retraction has been agreed after an investigation found that this article was the resubmitted version of a manuscript which had been rejected a month previously, primarily due to concerns about compliance with animal ethical best practices concerning killing. Upon submission of the second manuscript, there was no clearly identifiable indication that it was a resubmission, as required by the journal during the submission process. Without knowledge that the new manuscript was the resubmission of a rejected manuscript, the new handling editors could not benefit from the peer review history. Because of this, they did not appreciate the necessity to confirm whether the ethical concerns raised in the rejected version had been addressed in the resubmitted version. Had the handling editors seen the peer review history, they would have rejected the second manuscript prior to peer review. Additionally, the second manuscript had been edited to omit mention of the unethical practice and investigators were therefore unable to verify which methods were used in the published study, nor could they evaluate them against the accepted ethical practices for handling animals. The authors responded to our inquiry but could not provide either adequate raw data or explanations for our concerns. Therefore, the article must be retracted. The authors have been informed of the retraction and Dr. Seleem, on behalf of both authors, disagrees with this decision.