Weekend reads: A weird scandal gets weirder; rapid onset gender dysphoria paper retracted; the effects of retractions on careers and collaborations

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The week at Retraction Watch featured:

• Data sleuth flags 30 randomized clinical trials from researcher in Egypt
• Judge orders cancer researcher’s art collection seized to pay fees from failed libel suit
• Highly cited Lancet long COVID study retracted and republished
• Plague of anomalies in conference proceedings hint at ‘systemic issues’

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to more than 300. There are now 40,000 retractions in our database — which powers retraction alerts in EndNote, LibKey, Papers, and Zotero. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains 200 titles. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately — or our list of top 10 most highly cited retracted papers?

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

• “A Weird Research-Misconduct Scandal About Dishonesty Just Got Weirder.”
• After backlash, a paper on rapid onset gender dysphoria is retracted.
• What effect do scientific retractions have on careers and collaborations among researchers?
• “The student does not do the research themselves. Instead, they show a receipt to a faculty member…who then emails the student data that are used to produce a manuscript, along with a number of Saveetha publications to be cited.”
• A researcher has corrected a paper about talc and mesothelioma after a J&J subsidiary — facing lawsuits about the link — alleged fraud.
• “Characteristics of retracted publications related to pain research: a systematic review.”
• “Profiles, motives and experiences of authors publishing in predatory journals: OMICS as a case study.”
• “Instead of credible data, PDS Biotech delivers ‘results might get better, later’ promises.”
• “When it ends up in the courts, it ends up being decided not based on the allegations of misconduct, but based on employment law. … Science gets short shrift.”
• “Problematic Papers from Zhejiang University.”
• “A Year of Jxiv – Warming the Preprints Stone.”
• “Analysis of peer reviewers’ response to invitations by gender and geographical region: cohort study of manuscripts reviewed at 21 biomedical journals before and during covid-19 pandemic.”
• “How to Manage Scientific Review Requests.”
• “Citation counting is encouraging cheating in Iran.”
• Charges of “Censorship at the American Psychological Association.”
• “The international article was retracted, what did the Vietnamese author say?”
• A controversial paper on the ‘cost of autism’ flagged two years ago is retracted.
• “Retraction, She Wrote: Dorothy Bishop’s life after research.”
• “Correcting the scientific record: Legitimation strategies in retraction notices.”
• “The moralization of science.”
• “The inside story of how data integrity issues roiled a biotech seen as ‘Moderna 2.0.’”
• “‘This might tank my career’: Pruitt accuser on whistleblowing.”
• “Muzzled for years, vindicated MIT professor says fraud investigation into his lab did lasting damage.”
• A judge ruled that a Mexican official did not plagiarize her thesis. But that’s not what the university investigation found. 
• “Nick Wise, Scientific Sleuth and Fluid Dynamics Researcher.”

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