Brown University physician-scientist Wafik El-Deiry has been a longtime critic of the post-publication forum PubPeer, where 75 of his papers have been flagged. For example, in an April post on X, formerly Twitter, he stated, “It is not good that PubPeer has been weaponized and has become tyrannical.” In July 2024, he referred to the emails authors receive when someone posts a comment about their papers as being “under attack by PubPeer and their anonymous mob.”
PubPeer, started in 2012, won the 2024 Einstein Award For Promoting Quality in Research. (Disclosure: Our co-founder Ivan Oransky is a volunteer member of the board of directors of the PubPeer Foundation.)
In April, a site called Science Guardians, an “online journal club” with remarkable similarities – but also key differences – to PubPeer, launched what it called an “investigation” into PubPeer. Since then the anonymous account has posted numerous posts on X critiquing PubPeer while promising to reveal the “perpetrators of the PubPeer Network Mob.”
Sleuth Kevin Patrick was an early target of Science Guardians, which called him “Perpetrator 1.” The posts attributed usernames to Patrick that weren’t his, among other inaccurate statements. “They don’t seem to care too much about the facts,” Patrick said. “They have a point of view that they want to share, whether the facts are real or not.”
El-Deiry frequently amplifies @SciGuardians’ posts by sharing them on X. ScienceGuardians has 1,600 followers; El-Deiry has 16,700.
El-Deiry has discussed publicly that he is a candidate for the top job at the National Cancer Institute. He is also a co-editor-in-chief of the journal Oncotarget.
We extended an invitation to El-Deiry to answer questions on his thoughts on scientific publishing, post-publication review and on if he’s still in the running at NCI.
The questions were:
- You have referred to the commenters on PubPeer as a “mob” since at least July 2024, and you’ve stated it has been “weaponized and has become tyrannical.” Can you clarify why you think this is the case?
- Does your position on PubPeer extend into post-publication review as a whole?
- You stated in November 2024 that you joined Science Guardians. Was that as a commenter/participant in the forum, or as a board member, adviser, or something else?
- There are no other named members or affiliates of Science Guardians. Why the lack of transparency on who is overseeing discussions on the website and creating the posts on X?
- You have published quite prolifically across many journals, some of which Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently called “corrupt.” What do you think about his proposal to create alternative, government-run journals?
- And finally: Any update on your status in the running for NCI director?
El-Deiry responded at 5:33 p.m. EDT today, responding partially to only a few of our questions:
Thank you for reaching out.
To clarify, I am not involved in the operations or leadership of ScienceGuardians. Like many others in the academic community, I registered on their post-publication peer review platform and have occasionally reshared posts I found of interest or relevance. These posts have reached tens of thousands of individuals and have been reposted by hundreds; the opinions expressed within them span a broad spectrum of voices.
I believe it is important for post-publication peer review to remain open, respectful, and accountable. Beyond that, I have no further comments at this time.
El-Deiry posted a screenshot of the email and his response on X, also at 5:33 p.m. EDT, with the message: “In the interest of transparency I am sharing this request that appeared in my inbox earlier today. I have no other comment.”
A paper on which El-Deiry was sixth author was retracted in 2013 because “the presentation issues are beyond the limits of acceptable scientific standards.” In 2021, the last author of that paper, Sam W. Lee, paid $215,000 to settle claims that he used fake data in a grant application.
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“Brown University physician-scientist Wafik El-Deiry”
Is that the same as this Brown?
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=simpson+not+brown
Interesting fact about Sam Lee, he is currently in a sue counter sue battle with Yale who hired him soon after the Harvard fiasco.
Desperate to keep the job. Like him many are there. Pubpeer👍
As an aside, during the pandemic Prof. El-Deiry demonstrated a little too much credulity towards the claims of “turbo cancer” due to COVID-19 vaccines.
https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2023/10/09/dr-william-makis-promoting-the-nonsense-that-is-turbo-cancer/
He even gave an interview to an antivax “journalist” about it.
https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2023/10/18/an-antivaxxer-interviews-a-respected-oncologist-about-turbo-cancer/
Thinking about “respectful”:
A friend in an online discussion group said something which has stuck with me. Paraphrased: “Respect” sounds like a good thing, and it doesn’t seem unreasonable to ask that people treat each other with respect. But actually it has multiple meanings. Respecting someone can be treating them like a person, or treating them like an authority. Often when people demand that you respect them, they want the latter: they wanted to be treated as an authority, not challenged, not questioned, not argued with.
Beware the person who is hiding behind “respect” in order to disguise “If you don’t acknowledge my authority I won’t acknowledge your personhood.”
Thinking about “open”:
Anonymous complaints can be problematic when the anonymity means you can’t check if they’re true. But “the figures in this paper look munged” is not one of those situations. Saying “J. Smith says the figures in this paper look munged” adds essentially nothing. The figures are published! We can all look at them! The only people who have privileged information in this situation are the authors, which is why we ask them to provide original images. I have absolutely zero regard for those who instead complain about anonymity: it is hard not to suspect this is a cover for “If only I knew who this was, I could make them sorry they commented.”
(Disclaimer: I comment anonymously on PubPeer.)