What we’ve learned from public records requests. Please help us file more.

Dear Retraction Watch reader:

You may have noticed an increasing number of posts over the past few years that contain the phrase “obtained through a public records request.” Some examples:

• It’s how we learned that a pharmacology researcher was demoted after a misconduct investigation – and then became chair at another school. That story led to a front-page piece in the New Orleans Times-Picayune.
• It’s how we learned that a Science journal took three years to do anything about a retraction request made by a researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The case later led to sanctions from the U.S. Office of Research Integrity for the graduate student involved. 
• It’s how we learned that a child psychiatrist’s research had been suspended indefinitely after one of her study’s participants had been hospitalized. ProPublica later reported that her university had paid back millions in NIH grants because of the incident and others.
• It’s how we learned that a professor at The Ohio State University had kept a six-figure job for a year after a misconduct finding.
• It’s how we learned that PLOS ONE had failed to retract a paper for three years after a university requested its removal.
• It’s how we learned that a PubPeer comment led the University of Michigan to reopen a misconduct investigation.

We could go on. This sort of work is, in our view, a core part of what we do in journalism.

But we’re been doing all of it without any journalism staff – just two volunteers, one me and one co-founder Adam Marcus – and sometimes with a freelance reporter we can pay per story. The one exception is our full-time researcher, Alison Abritis, who manages to file the requests – the first of many steps in reporting on these stories – on infrequent “breaks” from making sure more than 3,000 retractions are entered into our database every year. And sometimes institutions charge us fees to obtain the documents.

In other words, countless stories are waiting to be told because we are so short on resources. As I noted last year, we would like to once again hire a full-time editor, a position we were last able to fund in 2018. The grants that funded that position ended years ago. Six months ago, I said we need to raise an additional $100,000 over the following two years. The good news is that we’re part of the way to that goal. 

But we need more help. So we’re asking that you please consider a tax-deductible donation to support our work. You can make a one-time tax-deductible contribution by PayPal or by Square, or a monthly tax-deductible donation by Paypal. Or if you prefer to send a check, please make it out to The Center For Scientific Integrity and mail it to 121 W. 36th St., Suite 209, New York, NY 10018. Should you be in a position to donate securities, please contact me at [email protected] for instructions.

Thank you in advance, and thank you for your ongoing support.