Weekend reads: Highly cited scientist was manipulating citations; ‘botched and unnecessary’ operations; a flawed coronavirus study

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The week at Retraction Watch featured:

• the retraction of a preprint on coronavirus;
• a finding of misconduct at Michigan State;
• the resignation of an entire editorial board over a dispute with a journal’s publisher;
• and a former grad student who forged a PI’s authorship — and got smacked down for it.

Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

• “[O]ne of the world’s most highly cited researchers has been removed from the editorial board of one journal and barred as a reviewer for another, after repeatedly manipulating the peer-review process…”
• “A culture of ‘avoidance and denial’ allowed a breast surgeon to perform botched and unnecessary operations on hundreds of women, a report has found.” The same surgeon had a paper retracted in 2012 because, among other reasons, “some patients included in the study were treated by a breast cancer surgeon currently under investigation for using a surgical technique not deemed to be best practice.”
• A study claiming a new coronavirus can be transmitted by people without symptoms was flawed.
• “This resolution, and the bizarre and circuitous sequence that preceded it, reveals the often-arbitrary nature of the academic publication process.”
• “Mark Alfano, who holds academic posts at Sydney’s Macquarie University and Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, launched a petition last month that calls for the leadership of the journal Philosophical Psychology to resign, apologise or retract an article written by Nathan Cofnas, a doctoral student at the University of Oxford.”
• “I propose that we begin calculating the “Integrity Factor” for journals and perhaps this should be the number of retractions in, say, a 5‐ or 10‐year period divided by the number of original research papers published.” See our commentary here.
• “Punishing research misconduct.” A new episode of the Everything Hertz podcast.
• “Reviewers should stop doing the market’s dirty work: Excessive criticism reflects a dearth of research funding and space in top journals. But peers needn’t play ball, says an anonymous academic” writing in Times Higher Education.
• “A former Montana State University assistant professor is appealing to the Montana Supreme Court after a Gallatin County judge ruled against his lawsuit that accused the university of firing him illegally and damaging his reputation.”
• “What are fake interdisciplinary collaborations and why do they occur?”
• “10 Types of Plagiarism in Research.”
• This week, a company’s press rep retracted a press release because it implied that Alicia Keys had somehow endorsed their “sustainably sourced, farm-to-consumer cannabis.”
• “Should the practice of authors nominating reviewers continue?”
• “The Royal Academy of Sciences supports Carlos López Otin,” who has had nine papers retracted.
• “This move acknowledges the key role that preprints can play at a time when science is moving swiftly, especially when rapid information sharing and communication among researchers, policy makers, and public health advocates can save lives.”
• “A growing body of evidence suggests that research misconduct has been rising steadily over the last few decades.”
• “What Research Institutions Can Do to Foster Research Integrity.”
• “Reports of misconduct are now reaching alarming proportions in Asia, and the negative consequences…are incalculable,” writes Bruce Svare in a research paper.
• “A mean and aggressive research working culture threatens the public’s respect for scientists…”
• “The researchers found that women were 21 percent less likely to be invited than men with similar scientific expertise, seniority and publication metrics.”
• “A feudal approach to intellectual property has turned the academy into a modern police state, says Steve Fuller” about plagiarism.
• “What could an editor do when faced with a potential case of plagiarism?”
• “Beginning this week, authors of new submissions to Nature will be offered the option to have anonymous referee reports published, along with their own responses and rebuttals, once a manuscript is ready for publication.”

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