Weekend reads: The afterlife of retracted articles; ADA denies it censored opinions; a ‘twisted phantasmagory’ of ghostwriting

If your week flew by — we know ours did — catch up here with what you might have missed.

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

• Editors of higher education journal coauthor editorial with fake references
• Researchers appeal misconduct finding over studies of trans youth
• PeerJ retracts study that secretly observed tourists’ reactions to snakes
• Editors of French journal on corporate responsibility resign after ownership transfer

In case you missed the news, the Hijacked Journal Checker now has more than 450 entries. The Retraction Watch Database has over 67,000 retractions. Our list of COVID-19 retractions is approaching 700, and our mass resignations list has more than 50 entries. We keep tabs on all this and more. If you value this work, please consider showing your support with a tax-deductible donation. Every dollar counts.

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

• “Why retracted articles can have an influential afterlife—and what to do about it.”
• “ADA review of members’ expulsion denies group censored opinions, called in police.” The organization now faces a boycott. Our cofounders on ADA’s “self-made mess.” 
• “[S]cholarship is supposed to be iterative“: On a model used to question the 2024 election results. 
• A ghostwritten medical paper became a “twisted phantasmagory of both academic writing and pain management.”
• Former employee accuses medical institute of “‘misappropriation’ of donor money and government funding.”
• “The Scientist Trying to Keep Kratom Legal Has Not Disclosed Longstanding Ties to Kratom Lobbyists.”
• “Dishonest behavior in biomedical journals: Analysis of two cases” from an Argentina journal. 
• “Duke professor Dan Ariely seeks political office in Israel with Pirate Party.” Last week, he lost a paper after sleuths found signs of data tampering.
• Romanian news site alleges a third of military officer’s doctoral thesis is plagiarized. 
• Tufts University “finds no misconduct in Korea studies scholar’s fabricated citations.”
• Researchers who commit research misconduct in South Korea to face 20-year ban from research projects after act revised. 
• “How easy is it to buy a research paper on the black market?”
• Billionaire who funded Francesca Gino’s legal defense and a researcher launch “An Award for Scholars Who Tell the Truth.” 
• “Wiley research publishing revenue jumps 12pc on OA growth and Emerald acquisition.”
• “The barrier is purely financial“: Researchers submit AI-generated papers to 50 different “predatory” journals that sent unsolicited emails. 
• “Do African universities need their own, locally relevant ranking?”
• “Swiss innovation fund faces conflict of interest concerns.”
• “Paper mill activity in dermatology has emerged rapidly and is characterised by consistent deficits in research integrity, particularly in data transparency and ethical oversight.”
• “The World Bank is right to prioritize reproducibility.”
• Virginia university “suspends cancer research project over animal mistreatment.”
• “Before the Record: Proofs as Ritual.”
• Dean on fraudulent scientist Yannick Griep: “I can’t escape the impression that he committed fraud knowingly and deliberately.”
• “Fake Webometrics University Rankings: Network Expansion, Geo-IP Cloaking, and Institutional Vulnerabilities in the Global South.”
• “Nations expanding their research programmes impose sweeping penalties for malpractice.”
• “A data leak shut a top research biobank: lessons from the recovery.”
• France’s National Center for Scientific Research “warns AI-driven fraud risks $232M annual cost to French research institutions alone.”
• Bangladesh Prime Minister’s daughter “resigns as WHO regional head after fraud allegations,” misrepresenting academic credentials. 
• “Popular open-science platform to stop hosting data and code amid funding concerns.”
• “Conference posters could garner a wider audience, thanks to a new online platform.”
• “Want a catchy paper title? All you need is a Beatles lyric.”

Upcoming Talks

• “STEM in Crisis: Restoring Free Inquiry“: MIT Free Speech Alliance’s 2026 Annual Conference featuring our Ivan Oransky (September 17, Cambridge, MA)
• “Tracking Retractions: Inside What’s Wrong With Science and Science Publishing” by our Adam Marcus (December 4, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities campus)

---

Like Retraction Watch? You can make a tax-deductible contribution to support our work, follow us on X or Bluesky, like us on Facebook, follow us on LinkedIn, 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].

---