Weekend reads: Our cofounder credited in fake citation; ‘Substantial’ undisclosed COIs in psychiatry research; an AI threat to online surveys

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The week at Retraction Watch featured:

• Computing society pulls works for ‘citation falsification’ months after sleuth is convicted of defamation
• Research integrity conference hit with AI-generated abstracts
• AI unreliable in identifying retracted research papers, says study
• Lancet journal retracts COVID-19 metformin paper nearly 2 years after authors request correction
• Springer Nature flags paper with fabricated reference to article (not) written by our cofounder
• COVID-19 paper by scientists at Harvard, Duke gets expression of concern for ‘unreliable’ data
• Exclusive: Reviewer recommended against publishing paper on DNA in COVID vaccines

Did you know that Retraction Watch and the Retraction Watch Database are  projects of The Center of Scientific Integrity?  Others include the Medical Evidence Project, the Hijacked Journal Checker, and the Sleuths in Residence Program. Help support this work.   

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

• “Substantial undisclosed financial COIs were identified among the top 10 earners in high-impact psychiatry journals” in the U.S., finds study.
• “A Researcher Made an AI That Completely Breaks the Online Surveys Scientists Rely On,” evading detection 99.8% of the time. 
• “More than 200 Korean papers retracted over AI use.”
• Elsevier finally retracts the last of five papers a group of researchers in Ireland reported more than a decade ago. See our April story.
• “The potential and limits of scrutiny in medical research”: an editorial by The BMJ’s editor-in-chief. Sleuth Dorothy Bishop responded that the journal’s open data policy is “not a failure” after The BMJ issued an expression of concern for a paper with data that didn’t match the study. 
• “NIH grant cuts have disrupted hundreds of clinical trials, study finds.”
• “The Hidden Crisis of Bad Science,” a podcast episode with James Heathers from our Medical Evidence Project.
• “Researcher accused of grant misuse wins damages as European Anti-Fraud Office removes ‘unlawful’ press release.”
• “Are the Deals to Save Research Funding Good For Research?”
• “Are we ready for a multipolar world of research?” asks Elsevier executive.
• “What Retractions Tell Us About Research Integrity in Mexican Academia.”
• “Scientific fraud: analysis of a growing phenomenon.”
• “In Memoriam: The Sudden Demise of the AMA Journal of Ethics.” A link to our coverage. 
• “Lessons from a long road to a first-author paper.”
• “Systematic reviews on the same topic are common but often fail to meet key methodological standards: a research-on-research study.”
• “The Pressure to Publish Is Challenging the Foundations of Academic Integrity”: Reflections from the Heidelberg Laureate Forum in September. 
• “The domination of scientific publishing in the Global North by major commercial publishers is harmful to science,” say researchers, who ask the scientific community to “re-communalise publishing to serve science not the market.”
• “Impact Metrics on Publisher Platforms: Who Shows What Where?”
• Researchers look into the “Feasibility and Outcomes of a Scientist-Designed Peer Review Model Separating Quality and Impact.”
• “‘In Defense of Francesca Gino’: HLS Professor Lawrence Lessig Uses Podcast to Tell Former HBS Professor’s Side in Tenure Denial Story.”
• “How English-Centric Metrics Distort Global Scientific Productivity.”
• “HHS names authors and releases peer review comments for gender dysphoria report.”
• “Scientific Writing in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.”
• Scholar calls for retraction of 2018 article that includes a paragraph stating historians ‘entirely fabricated’ ancient Greece, citing a news story from the satirical news site The Onion.

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