Year: 2021

Weekend reads: JAMA editor resigns after review of podcast on racism and medicine; ‘Please Commit More Blatant Academic Fraud’; machine learning’s health credibility crisis

Before we present this week’s Weekend Reads, a question: Do you enjoy our weekly roundup? If so, we could really use your help. Would you consider a tax-deductible donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance.

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 128.

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: JAMA editor resigns after review of podcast on racism and medicine; ‘Please Commit More Blatant Academic Fraud’; machine learning’s health credibility crisis

Medical journal retracts article on “tribalism” after readers call it offensive

Journal of Hospital Medicine editor Samir Shah

A journal has retracted — and replaced — an article on “tribalism” in medicine and deleted a tweet about it, too, after readers complained that the language in the piece was offensive to Indigenous peoples. 

The article, which appeared in the Journal of Hospital Medicine in April, was titled “Tribalism: The Good, The Bad, and The Future.” The authors were Zahir Kanjee and Leslie Bilello, of Harvard Medical School. 

The journal used social media to promote the article — which prompted a flood of criticism about the use of the word “tribalism” and its permutations. 

On May 21, Samir Shah, the editor-in-chief of JHM, and four other editors issued a statement  apologizing for publishing the article:

Continue reading Medical journal retracts article on “tribalism” after readers call it offensive

First, this paper was corrected. Now it has an expression of concern. And maybe, just maybe, it will be retracted.

William Warby via Flickr

Never let it be said that journals are not deliberative when it comes to correcting the record. 

Of course, “deliberative” also means “slow.”

Take a 2018 article in the Journal of Infectious Diseases (JID)  by a group of authors in India. 

Continue reading First, this paper was corrected. Now it has an expression of concern. And maybe, just maybe, it will be retracted.

Exclusive: Six years after a misconduct investigation, more than half of suspect papers remain unflagged

Hari Koul

When the University of Colorado at Denver completed an investigation in 2015 into the work of a former faculty member, the school recommended that nine papers be corrected or retracted.

But six years after the close of that investigation, the researcher, urologist Hari Koul, has had just two papers retracted and one corrected. 

Multiple journal editors told Retraction Watch they had not been informed that papers published in their journals were recommended for retraction or correction, according to documents obtained by Retraction Watch via a public records request. And emails show Koul was still negotiating the retraction of at least one of the papers last year.

Continue reading Exclusive: Six years after a misconduct investigation, more than half of suspect papers remain unflagged

The peer reviewers and editor wanted to publish my paper. The legal team rejected it.

Michael Dougherty

Move over, Reviewer 2: The legal reviewer wants your job. 

Last month, I was relieved when the journal Research Ethics published my article, “The Use of Confidentiality and Anonymity Protections as a Cover for Fraudulent Fieldwork Data.” One unexpected hurdle had almost thwarted publication. The problem wasn’t with the proverbial hard-to-please peer reviewer called Reviewer 2. Rather, the problem was with a behind-the-scenes reviewer of a different sort, Legal Reviewer 1.

I suspect that many authors have never heard of a legal reviewer. Yet depending on your research topics, you may have had your manuscripts delayed—or even rejected—without ever knowing of the powerful influence of persons in that role. In my case, the journal editor was candid in telling me that my manuscript would be sent to a “legal team” after clearing peer review.

Continue reading The peer reviewers and editor wanted to publish my paper. The legal team rejected it.

Two meditation papers retracted for failures to report primary outcomes

A pair of psychology journals have retracted two related papers on the health benefits of a popular form of meditation after a reader pointed out that the authors failed to report the primary outcome of the study underpinning the articles.

The now-retracted articles describe the putatively salubrious effects of sahaj samadhi meditation, a form of meditation developed by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and promoted by the Art of Living Foundation, which describes itself thusly: 

Continue reading Two meditation papers retracted for failures to report primary outcomes

Weekend reads: Gibberish papers persist; the academic who faked Cherokee heritage; ‘organised fraud hits scientific journals’

Before we present this week’s Weekend Reads, a question: Do you enjoy our weekly roundup? If so, we could really use your help. Would you consider a tax-deductible donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance.

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 126.

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: Gibberish papers persist; the academic who faked Cherokee heritage; ‘organised fraud hits scientific journals’

Imperial College London researcher fired for research misconduct

Eric Lam

Eric Lam, a highly-published cancer specialist, has been fired from his post at Imperial College London following a university investigation that found misconduct, Retraction Watch has learned.

Lam’s work has been the subject of scrutiny on PubPeer for some three years, dating back to a 2018 post pointing out suspicious images in a 2003 paper by him and his colleagues in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. In 2019, his group corrected a 2011 paper in Oncogene, a Springer Nature title, for image problems.

However, the new retraction marks the first such retraction for the researcher, whose LinkedIn page states that he is now affiliated with Sun Yat-Sen University, in China. According to an Imperial College London spokesperson:

Continue reading Imperial College London researcher fired for research misconduct

Anesthesiology researcher guilty of misconduct in more than 140 papers: Investigation

Showa University Hospital, via Wikimedia

A Japanese anesthesiologist has been found guilty of fabricating data and other misconduct in 142 articles, leading to his termination and the sanction of several of his co-authors. 

Showa University says its investigation into Hironobu Ueshima, the existence of which we first reported on last June, found that the prolific researcher had doctored his results, falsified his findings and tinkered with authorship.

The university’s report on the case is available here, in Japanese, and a similar report from the Japanese Society of Anesthesiologists is available here in English. The JSA report cites 142 papers — including 120 letters to the editor, 12 original papers, and 9 case reports — with evidence of misconduct including fabricated data and improper authorship. The investigation also found evidence of misconduct in several unpublished studies by Ueshima. By our count, he has six retractions to date.

Continue reading Anesthesiology researcher guilty of misconduct in more than 140 papers: Investigation

Elsevier retracts entire book that plagiarized heavily from Wikipedia

The periodic table is, as a recent book notes, a guide to nature’s building blocks. But the building blocks of said book appear to have been passages from Wikipedia.

The book, The Periodic Table: Nature’s Building Blocks: An Introduction to the Naturally Occurring Elements, Their Origins and Their Uses, was published by Elsevier last year. But in December, Tom Rauchfuss, of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, “tipped off by an Finnish editor on Wikipedia,” alerted the authors and Elsevier about the apparent plagiarism from the online encyclopedia.

On January 6, an Elsevier representative told Rauchfuss:

Continue reading Elsevier retracts entire book that plagiarized heavily from Wikipedia