Weekend reads: Why 500 retractions per month matter; another EOC for former Stanford president; and an argument for ‘slow science’

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

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

In case you missed the news, the Hijacked Journal Checker now has more than 400 entries. The Retraction Watch Database has over 63,000 retractions. Our list of COVID-19 retractions is up over 640, and our mass resignations list has 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.

I Support Retraction Watch

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

Continue reading Weekend reads: Why 500 retractions per month matter; another EOC for former Stanford president; and an argument for ‘slow science’

Fabricated allegations of image manipulation baffle expert

The fabricated claim about image manipulation raises a question: Why bother?

Mike Rossner had never seen anything like it. At first, the anonymous comment on PubPeer, which claimed a lane of a western blot in a research paper had been duplicated, seemed nothing out of the ordinary to Rossner, who specializes in detecting image manipulation in biomedical research. The surprise came when he looked closer at the magnified images the commenter had provided to support their allegation.

While the two enlarged lanes in the anonymous comment were indeed identical to each other, close inspection of the original image from the paper, which the comment included, clearly showed two different lanes. It wasn’t hard to see how the fakery had been achieved: A single lane had been copied and pasted on top of an adjacent lane.

“I have looked at thousands of PubPeer allegations, and this is the first time I have come across what appear to be fabricated allegations,” Rossner told us.

Continue reading Fabricated allegations of image manipulation baffle expert

‘Kicking the can down the road’: Science flags insect meta-analysis based on allegedly buggy database

An insect meta-analysis published in Science in 2020 has been hit with an EOC. (Photo credit: Aron Sousa)

Science has issued a permanent expression of concern for a paper reporting a meta-analysis of a database including studies critics have said were “experimentally manipulated.” 

The notice, published today, applies to a 2020 meta-analysis measuring population patterns of freshwater and terrestrial insects and predicting what might drive changes in population numbers. According to the notice, the move comes after critics raised concerns about a database, called InsectChange, on which the meta-analysis was based. The database itself was published in 2021 in Ecology, a journal of the Ecological Society of America. 

The Science article has been cited 820 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science. The Ecology paper has been cited 23 times. 

Continue reading ‘Kicking the can down the road’: Science flags insect meta-analysis based on allegedly buggy database

Lawsuit fails to block retraction of paper claiming to link heart-related deaths to COVID-19 vaccines

Greg J. Marchand in a photo from his research institute’s website.

A Taylor & Francis journal has retracted a widely-read paper linking cardiac-related mortality to COVID-19 vaccines after an unsuccessful legal attempt by the lead author to block the withdrawal. That author says he is considering further legal action against the publisher.

The article, “Risk of all-cause and cardiac-related mortality after vaccination against COVID-19: A meta-analysis of self-controlled case series studies,” drew swift criticism when it was published in Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics in August 2023. At the time, critics and sleuths were quick to challenge the data and methods used in the paper, which now has more than 143,000 views on the Taylor & Francis website and has been cited 15 times, including by two letters to the editor of the journal and a response from the authors, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science. 

The retraction notice, posted online January 16, states the retraction resulted from concerns that arose about the methodology of the study and the integrity and availability of the data. The authors provided a full response to the queries; however, the publisher determined the validity of the findings remained in question, the notice states. It continues:

Continue reading Lawsuit fails to block retraction of paper claiming to link heart-related deaths to COVID-19 vaccines

Fed up, author issues her own retraction after journal ghosts her

At wit’s end after a publisher ignored her repeated requests for a correction, Ursula Bellut-Staeck took the extreme step of issuing her own retraction. But is that even a thing?  

Bellut-Staeck, an independent researcher from Berlin, Germany, submitted a paper to SCIREA Journal of Clinical Medicine last spring after receiving an invitation from the journal. The article, about mechanotransduction and the impact of infrasound and vibrations, was published June 16.  

But when Bellut-Staeck realized her affiliation as listed on the article needed changing, she contacted the journal to request a correction. The problem, she said, was linguistic. Because she didn’t realize “affiliation” has a different meaning in German than English, she had mistakenly listed herself as being at an institution she has since left.

Continue reading Fed up, author issues her own retraction after journal ghosts her

Up in smoke: Publisher pulls vaping paper nearly two years after complaint

MDPI has retracted a study about vaping that one expert said seemed “like a joke” almost two years after the publisher received a complaint about the flawed work.

The paper, published in Neurology International in 2022, reported e-cigarette users had a higher risk of early stroke than traditional tobacco users. It has been cited 22 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science, and was covered in the media, featured in a public campaign against vaping and included in a contestedmeta-analysis.

But the study contained critical errors, as we reported in 2024 in a story for Science that investigated paper mill-like businesses dangling quick-and-dirty publications for international medical graduates looking for residency positions in the United States.

Continue reading Up in smoke: Publisher pulls vaping paper nearly two years after complaint

Corrections, biases, and humility in science: Q&A with Tuan V. Nguyen

In a new memoir, Kangaroo Dreams, Tuan V. Nguyen, D.Sc., Ph.D., provides a unique perspective on medical research. Nguyen escaped Vietnam in 1981 as part of the mass “boat people” exodus of refugees, taking to dangerous waters just a few months after his older brother attempted the same and disappeared. Making his way to Australia through grit and luck in 1982, Nguyen started his new life as a dishwasher before steadily building a career in science, ultimately specializing in bone research.

Nguyen is now distinguished professor of predictive medicine and director of the Center for Health Technologies at the University of Technology Sydney and adjunct professor of epidemiology at the University of New South Wales. He’s also a Leadership Fellow of the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council and a member of the Order of Australia. Dedicated to the memory of his lost brother, Kangaroo Dreams weaves Nguyen’s personal journey with a thoughtful examination of contemporary medical research. We interviewed him in writing to learn more. (Responses have been lightly edited for length and clarity.)

Retraction Watch: You were co-author on a 1994 Nature paper subsequently corrected in 1997 which reported individuals with a particular vitamin D receptor gene benefitted from relatively high bone mineral density. When the research team made this finding, you write, “A nagging unease, however, bothered me. The results, while undeniably impressive, seemed almost too good to be true.” The team published the findings only to discover – after a Nature reader challenged the results – that a lab member who was ill likely contaminated samples, skewing the results. Did you regret not having pushed harder on your initial doubts? What held you back?

Continue reading Corrections, biases, and humility in science: Q&A with Tuan V. Nguyen

Weekend reads: A retraction in Nature; penalties for ‘retraction hotspot’ universities?; an analysis of PISS journals

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

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

In case you missed the news, the Hijacked Journal Checker now has more than 400 entries. The Retraction Watch Database has over 63,000 retractions. Our list of COVID-19 retractions is up over 460, and our mass resignations list has 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.

I Support Retraction Watch

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

Continue reading Weekend reads: A retraction in Nature; penalties for ‘retraction hotspot’ universities?; an analysis of PISS journals

Business management journal holds researcher’s paper hostage 

A “scholarly business and management publication” is holding a researcher’s paper for ransom, requesting the author pay to withdraw the article. 

The researcher submitted a manuscript in August to the Academy of Strategic Management Journal in August, thinking he had sent it to the Academy of Management Journal. He asked to remain anonymous for fear of seeming careless “rather than recognizing the real predatory nature” of the journal.

The journal’s homepage notes it is indexed in Scopus, but it was delisted in 2021, nor is it indexed in Clarivate’s Web of Science. Its most recent volume contains five single-author articles from nonexistent universities. None of the articles has a DOI or provides an email for the author. 

Continue reading Business management journal holds researcher’s paper hostage 

Technobabble papers by professor and editor under scrutiny

After we reached out to Eren Öğüt, his profiles at Google Scholar, ORCID and Frontiers’ Loop all vanished.

The reviewer, a neuroscientist in Germany, was confused. The manuscript on her screen, describing efforts to model a thin layer of gray matter in the brain called the indusium griseum, seemed oddly devoid of gist. The figures in the single-authored article made little sense, the MATLAB functions provided were irrelevant, the discussion failed to engage with the results and felt more like a review of the literature.

And, the reviewer wondered, was the resolution of the publicly available MRI data the manuscript purported to analyze sufficient to visualize the delicate anatomical structure in the first place? She turned to a colleague who sat in the same office. An expert in analyzing brain images, he confirmed her suspicion: The resolution was too low. (Both researchers spoke to us on condition of anonymity.)

The reviewer suggested rejecting the manuscript, which had been submitted to Springer Nature’s Brain Topography. But in November, just a few weeks later, the colleague she had consulted received an invitation to review the same paper, this time for Scientific Reports. He accepted out of curiosity. A figure supposed to depict the indusium griseum but showing a simple sine wave baffled him. “You look at that and think, well, this is not looking like an anatomical structure,” he told us. 

Continue reading Technobabble papers by professor and editor under scrutiny