Weekend reads: ‘A lab in recovery’; ‘my paper was proved wrong’; a journal apologizes

Would you consider a donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work?

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

• After saying it would retract an article, Cureus changed its mind
• Former Columbia University psychiatrist committed research misconduct, says federal watchdog
• Exclusive: Cancer researchers in Iran under investigation as questions swirl around dozens of studies
• Retractions begin for chemist found to have faked data in 42 papers
• A journal switches to a new publisher, then corrects a paper. What should happen to the old version?

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up past 400. There are more than 50,000 retractions in The Retraction Watch Database — which is now part of Crossref. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains more than 250 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? What about The Retraction Watch Mass Resignations List — or our list of nearly 100 papers with evidence they were written by ChatGPT?

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

• “A scientific fraud. An investigation. A lab in recovery”: What happens when someone destroys trust in science. 
• “My paper was proved wrong. After a sleepless night, here’s what I did next.”
• In a lengthy editorial, a journal apologizes for a paper about racial bias in Tibet that “reinforce[s] imperialism.”
• Springer Nature’s shares leap” in Frankfurt initial public offering.
• “Penalty increased on appeal for Didier Raoult, banned from practicing medicine for two years.”
• “Through an analysis of comprehensive databases containing core journal publications and documented misconduct cases, we established a significant negative correlation between scientific disclosure and corporate misconduct.”
• “You know what, honey, I’m gonna start a papermill!”
• “Is anyone under any doubt that we will create fully automated peer review systems which operate more successful than human beings?”
• “Equitable Scholarly Communication: Realistic or Idealistic?”
• “As with a bully, bullying from an editor can be ruinous to mental health, causing editorial staff to fear coming to work and requiring them to manage excessive self-doubt and stress.”
• “We tackle this challenge by introducing a notion of group fairness, called the core, which requires that every possible community…to be treated in a way that prevents them from unilaterally benefiting by withdrawing from a large conference.”
• “New Research Misconduct Rule May Expose, Chill Witnesses.”
• “How pirate websites undermine research integrity.”
• “The absence of an agreed definition of research misconduct is a major challenge.”
• The Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety “also refused to acknowledge the Nuclear Safety and Security Commission’s findings of research misconduct…”
• “Countries such as Russia, the USA, China and publishers such as Elsevier and Taylor and Francis led in the retractions of social science articles.”
• “All science papers must state how confident we should be in them.”
• “Medical journal peer reviewers are paid millions by industry, study finds.”
• “Overcoming Skepticism Through Experimentation: The Role of AI in Transforming Peer Review.”
• The validity of “Peer-Reviewed Publications: A Concerning Situation With Implications for Oncology.”
• “Nearly 50% of researchers quit science within a decade,” and women are more likely to leave than men, study reveals.
• Researchers surveyed experts to “identify methods to detect problematic studies” in preparation for a detection tool. 
• “Using PubPeer to screen editors.”
• Is detecting AI-generated text “beside the point” for indicating research fraud? 
• “Scientific Misconduct: Decisions in Two Cases” from the German Research Foundation.
• Researchers “discuss our personal experience with editorial misconduct hoping to highlight the issue and thereby increase awareness.”
• “An Alzheimer’s drugmaker is accused of data manipulation. Should its trials be stopped?”
• “Academics could resolve authorship dilemmas when publishing scholarly works by taking a quantitative approach to crediting contributions,” researchers say. 
• “Time to Move On: Moving Journals to a New Publisher.”
• “The How and Why of Recovery of Grant Funds” from an NIH blog. 
• “Plagiarized, retracted articles, suspicious references: study factories have also arrived in Hungary.”
• “University president’s doctoral dissertation raises concerns of academic misconduct.”
• “New peer-review trial lets grant applicants evaluate each other’s proposals.”
• Well, this is one way to respond to a comment from “Dr. Bic,” whom we of course assume to be Elisabeth Bik. 
• “Lawmakers Demand Halt to Controversial Alcohol Study in U.S. Dietary Guidelines Review.”
• “Mass retractions obscure deeper issues running across scholarly publishing,” say researchers. 
• “A flood of fraudulent scientific papers” in the dietary supplement industry.
• “How Shame, Blame and the Internet Eroded Trust in Science” during the COVID pandemic.
• “Indian government accused of political meddling in science prizes.”
• “Scientific publishing in France: from censorship to openness: political, commercial, technological revolutions… and other ethical problems.”

Like Retraction Watch? You can make a tax-deductible contribution to support our work, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, add us to your RSS reader, or subscribe to our daily digest. If you find a retraction that’s not in our database, you can let us know here. For comments or feedback, email us at [email protected].