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The week at Retraction Watch featured:
- Former UPenn prof faked more than 50 figures, says government watchdog
- Scientist sues publisher to block expression of concern
- Editors of public health journal resign over differences with publisher
- Publisher blacklists authors after preprint cites made-up studies.
Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to more than 300. There are now 41,000 retractions in our database — which powers retraction alerts in EndNote, LibKey, Papers, and Zotero. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains 200 titles. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately — or our list of top 10 most highly cited retracted papers?
Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):
- “NIH defunds Colombian research facility that allegedly abused monkeys.”
- Last month, an Ohio judge ruled against embattled cancer researcher Carlo Croce and dismissed his case to get his endowed chair back after Ohio State revoked it.
- UKRIO’s annual statement includes a look at retractions in the UK.
- “Peer Review Is Porous and The Bastards Know That Now.”
- How effective is peer review at spotting issues that later lead to retraction? A new study tried to find out.
- A new paper suggests that COPE guidelines “make it mandatory to disclose in retraction notices institutional investigations.” Our recommendations from 2015.
- The Innovation, a young Cell Press journal from China, earned an impact factor of 32.1, putting it in third place behind Nature and Science in its category.
- “Retractions and Rewards in Science: An Open Question for Reviewers and Funders.”
- “Retracted and still cited: profile of post-retraction citations in articles by Brazilian researchers.”
- “Stellenbosch University’s Vice-Chancellor cleared of misconduct over nepotism scandal.”
- “Do reviewers get their deserved acknowledgments from the authors of manuscripts?”
- The impact factor of Seminars in Orthodontics tripled the year after it published a paper that hundreds of students at a Saveetha Dental College were required to cite.
- “A ‘flawed’ medical journal article on postpartum pain was targeted for retraction from The Lancet.” It wasn’t.
- How common are retractions in dermatology?
- “3 of Francesca Gino’s Allegedly Fraudulent Studies Will Be Retracted.”
- What impact does communicating nuance have on perceptions of a scientist’s trustworthiness?
- “University of Liberia Denies Allegations of Academic Fraud.”
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The linked court document on the latest Carlos Croce lawsuit dismissal had some interesting and disturbing “factual allegations” construed in plaintiff Croce’s favor: Croce was the subject of a defamatory article in the New York Times by James Glanz, yet I recall coverage here in RW that Glanz and NYT were ruled not to have defamed Croce.
That’s explained in the first paragraph:
“A motion for judgment on the pleadings “presents only questions of law…” and “The standard for a motion for
judgment on the pleadings… “is similar to the standard for evaluating a… motion to dismiss.”
Here, the court first assumes that the plaintiff’s statements of facts are all true – and then assesses whether they would win the case if they could prove those facts. Here they determined, Croce would lose, even if those “facts” were proven, and so approved the Defendant’s motion.
Surely others have already requested this, but would it be possible to add a sign to those news items that require registration before we can read anything? I enjoy going through your roundup but don’t like to waste time on registering….
Thanks for the suggestion, but that would require even more of a volunteer’s (mine) time every week that we feel is better spent on other efforts. For context, please see these appeals:
https://mailchi.mp/retractionwatch/giving-tuesday-2021
https://mailchi.mp/retractionwatch/april-2023-appeal
We’d welcome your support if you are able.
Re the paywalled Francesca Gino item I notice also this:
https://datacolada.org/109
(via Doctorow and Blair Fix)
Is this the Atlantic article?https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2023/07/francesca-gino-harvard-research-retraction/674630/
I hadn’t seen any mention of it on RW yet, but it’s an interesting take