Weekend reads: Neuroscientist found not guilty of misconduct; when editors revolt; a Waffle House study walkback 

If your week flew by — we know ours did — catch up here with what you might have missed.

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

In case you missed the news, the Hijacked Journal Checker now has more than 450 entries. The Retraction Watch Database has over 65,000 retractions. Our list of COVID-19 retractions is up to 650, and our mass resignations list has more than 50 entries. We keep tabs on all this and more. If you value this work, please consider showing your support with a tax-deductible donation. Every dollar counts.

I Support Retraction Watch

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

Continue reading Weekend reads: Neuroscientist found not guilty of misconduct; when editors revolt; a Waffle House study walkback 

‘The exploitation still remains’: Stats journal associate editors resign over $3,000 publishing charge

Eighteen associate editors of the journal Statistics and Computing have announced they will resign after Springer Nature announced the journal would require a fee to publish. 

In a July 8 statement to editor-in-chief Ajay Jasra, the resigning editors cite the publisher’s decision to become fully open access starting in 2027, a move they call “irreconcilable with our vision of science.” According to the journal’s homepage, all submissions from July 1 that end up in the journal will be subject to a $2,990 article processing charge (APC). 

The journal formerly operated as a hybrid model, with optional open access. While the fee to publish OA will remain the same, authors will not have the option to publish for free with their research behind a paywall, unless they qualify for a waiver. Springer Nature offers APC waivers to papers with corresponding authors in low-income areas, according to their website. 

Continue reading ‘The exploitation still remains’: Stats journal associate editors resign over $3,000 publishing charge

Exclusive: Sage to retract multiple articles by dismissed rising star for “compromised” peer-review process

Yannick Griep, a former rising star in management research at Radboud University in the Netherlands, is set to lose an undisclosed number of articles from a journal he once edited, Retraction Watch has learned.

In an email we obtained, Sage’s Isabella Austin told editorial board members of Group & Organization Management that following “a thorough investigation into the concerns about peer-review on this journal,” the publisher found the “objectivity of the peer-review process administered by the former Editor in Chief on a subset of articles where they are co-author was compromised.” Those articles, wrote Austin, would be retracted.

Continue reading Exclusive: Sage to retract multiple articles by dismissed rising star for “compromised” peer-review process

Judge dismisses Splenda lawsuit, says courts wrong place for research debate

Susan Schiffman on WRAL

A North Carolina judge has scrapped a defamation suit by the maker of Splenda against a scientist, ruling the research dispute doesn’t belong in court. 

TC Heartland LLC, which manufactures the artificial sweetener, sued researcher Susan Schiffman in 2023 alleging she made defamatory remarks to the public about the product following a study she authored about sucralose. The paper, published that same year in the Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, Part B, found “sucralose to be genotoxic” and called for a review of its regulation. A spokesperson for Taylor & Francis, which publishes the title, told Retraction Watch the article is under investigation. 

The paper does not mention “Splenda,” but TC Heartland claimed Schiffman “relentlessly” disparaged the sweetener during media interviews to “promote” the paper and warned the public it was dangerous to consume, according to the company’s lawsuit. Schiffman, a professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, countersued TC Heartland for defamation after the company created a webpage that challenged her research and “essentially accused her of being a publicity hound,” according to court documents.  

Continue reading Judge dismisses Splenda lawsuit, says courts wrong place for research debate

Springer Nature un-retracts Planck papers, citing “human error”

Max Planck

Today the Retraction Watch list of Nobelists who have retracted papers bids Verabschiedung to Max Planck.

After days of scrutiny, Springer Nature has restored two papers by Planck, who won the Nobel for Physics in 1918, reversing a 2011 decision to retract the articles for “copyright violations.” 

Both articles are back, and now carry the following statement: 

Continue reading Springer Nature un-retracts Planck papers, citing “human error”

Former acting director of national research lab in India adds another retraction

A cancer journal has retracted a paper by a former acting director of an institute in India, bringing her retraction total to nine.

Chitra Mandal, a former senior researcher at the Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research’s Indian Institute of Chemical Biology (CSIR-IIC) at Kolkata, served as acting director in 2014-15. She also headed the CSIR’s Innovation complex between 2010 and 2015. She received multiple awards, and was also appointed a Science and Engineering Research Board Distinguished Fellow in 2018. 

Mandal has now lost nine articles to retraction and more than two dozen of her papers have been flagged on PubPeer, most for image irregularities or data issues in graphs. In March, Wiley’s Molecular Biology International retracted a 2011 article Mandal coauthored, also for image issues. We previously wrote about an expression of concern on a 2016 paper in which Mandal was a co-author. 

The latest retraction involves  a 2011 paper in Leukemia Research about the movement of lymphoblasts from the bone marrow to peripheral blood in childhood leukemia. The journal retracted the paper on May 30, citing concerns that some of the data in figures appear to have been manipulated.

Continue reading Former acting director of national research lab in India adds another retraction

Ethics journal retracts paper by high school student for AI, peer review manipulation

The Journal of Medical Ethics has retracted a paper on the use of AI in the pharmaceutical industry for containing references that don’t exist. The article’s sole author: a high school student. 

The paper, which argues biased algorithms can exacerbate inequities in health care, was published in September. The author, Irfan Biswas, listed his affiliation as Shrewsbury Public Schools in Massachusetts.

According to the May 28 retraction notice, an investigation by the journal found Biswas used generative AI to “identify and understand referenced sources” and did not verify the references prior to submission. 

Continue reading Ethics journal retracts paper by high school student for AI, peer review manipulation

Weekend reads: Taylor Swift teaches botany; NEJM retracts key study in Amgen drug; hidden prompts at conference ‘snare AI peer reviews’

If your week flew by — we know ours did — catch up here with what you might have missed.

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

In case you missed the news, the Hijacked Journal Checker now has more than 450 entries. The Retraction Watch Database has over 65,000 retractions. Our list of COVID-19 retractions is up to 650, and our mass resignations list has more than 50 entries. We keep tabs on all this and more. If you value this work, please consider showing your support with a tax-deductible donation. Every dollar counts.

I Support Retraction Watch

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

Continue reading Weekend reads: Taylor Swift teaches botany; NEJM retracts key study in Amgen drug; hidden prompts at conference ‘snare AI peer reviews’

Computer science society creates new research integrity role to address case backlog 

AndreyPopov/iStock

Over the last five years, the Association for Computing Machinery has been dealing with a rapid rise in allegations of research misconduct that have created a backlog of cases to investigate.

The publisher has a committee to analyze claims, but with only a small group of volunteers, cases can take a year or more to resolve, said Scott Delman, ACM’s director of publications. To address allegations faster and with a sharper focus, the association is hiring a director of research integrity, a new role for the publisher. 

“Certainly, we’ve been investing more financial resources in research integrity over the last five years, but we need an expert,” Delman told us. “We’re long past due in having a dedicated director of research integrity who will be the central resource for ACM on all things relating to integrity.” 

Continue reading Computer science society creates new research integrity role to address case backlog 

Editors of Courant math journal to leave Wiley, establish new roots with independent publisher

Editors of a journal run by a prestigious math institute will close up shop and form a new journal with an independent publisher, with one editor citing Wiley’s increased oversight as the reason behind the move.

Communications on Pure and Applied Mathematics is the journal for the Courant Institute of Mathematics at New York University. The journal has been published in partnership with Wiley for over 75 years, and all the editors of the journal are affiliated with Courant. 

In emails Retraction Watch has seen, the editorial board notified Wiley in January that the institute would not be renewing its contract with the publisher once it expired at the end of 2026. 

Continue reading Editors of Courant math journal to leave Wiley, establish new roots with independent publisher