Weekend reads: ‘A scientific fraud epidemic’; censorship by retraction; buying and selling articles

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The week at Retraction Watch featured:

• Professor who sued employer for discrimination refiles after judge dismissed his suit
• Did a prof in India steal his student’s work – or is he being framed?

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to over 375. There are more than 44,000 retractions in The Retraction Watch Database — which is now part of Crossref. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains well over 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? Or The Retraction Watch Mass Resignations List?

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

• “There is a scientific fraud epidemic — and we are ignoring the cure.” (Also note this from five years ago.)
• “Why Research Fraud Is Getting Worse.”
• “‘Buying – selling’ scientific articles: Consequences of mistakenly buying smuggled or counterfeit goods.”
• “However, journals, professional organizations, universities, and publishers…also censor research.”
• “Our findings reveal that both the ‘police patrol’ and ‘fire alarm’ approaches are used to identify misconduct and deter funding-related fraud in China.”
• “As scientists face a flood of papers, AI developers aim to help.”
• “The institution fired the employee, and we removed them from review service.”
• “Gender imbalances among top-cited scientists across scientific disciplines over time through the analysis of nearly 5.8 million authors.”
• “Mentorship practices that improve the culture of peer review.”
• “Maintaining the integrity of scientific literature at a time of open science: case study, technical issues and role of stakeholders.”
• “Over 1,000 excluded from highly cited researcher list for ‘fraud.’”
• A researcher reflects on scientific fraud happening in his backyard.
• Cancer researcher fired by NYU for Israel-Hamas posts files suit.
• “Time to rethink academic publishing: the peer reviewer crisis.”
• “The impact of ‘Five No’s for Publication’ on academic misconduct.”
• “Defence against the dark arts: a proposal for a new MSc course.”
• “How one scientist uncovered identity theft, fictitious authors, and plagiarism.”
• “Does international publishing still matter for social scientists?”
• “No Liability for Supposed Medical Journal Article Misrepresentation About How to Treat Lyme Disease.”
• “Does haste make waste? Prevalence and types of errors reported after publication of studies of COVID-19 therapeutics.”
• “More Than 1,100 Physicians, Health Care Professionals, and Scientists Boycott Medical Journal.” Read an earlier Retraction Watch guest post on the issue.
• A fascinating account of what paper mill customers said about their publications, after nearly 50 retractions by Elsevier.
• “Science Sleuth Looks To Expose Research Fraud.”
• “Covert research carries ethical risks, funding body warns.”
• A minister’s “judicial chess to bury the UNAM report on her thesis.”
• “Flood of Submissions Bogs Down Peer Review: ‘Journals have a hard time checking the validity of data and methods.’”
• Article processing charges “paid in 2022 overcomes the amount devoted to doctoral grants in Portugal.”
• An article by an Alzheimer’s group under scrutiny earns a correction.
• “Pay to criticise? Rebuttal articles in open-access journals should be published for free.”
• “How to Cover Academic Research Fraud and Errors.” A webinar for reporters featuring Elisabeth Bik, ProPublica’s Jodi Cohen, and our Ivan Oransky.

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