Weekend reads: Stanford president to resign; untrustworthy clinical trials; ‘cruel and fake’ animal experiments

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The week at Retraction Watch featured:

• Journal to retract papers that cost its impact factor and spot in leading index
• Econ study retracted after researchers find ‘undocumented alterations in the code’
• Journal asks scientist to step down from editorial board after sleuth’s comments linked him to paper mill
• Journal editors resign, strike in dispute with Wiley over ‘business model that maximises profit’
• Florida university fires criminology professor blemished by retractions
• Sage retracting three dozen articles for ‘compromised’ peer review

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to more than 300. There are now 41,000 retractions in our database — which powers retraction alerts in Edifix, 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):

• “Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne and the new standards of scientific conduct.”
• Stanford president Marc Tessier-Lavigne will resign and retract three papers following a highly anticipated misconduct investigation.
• “Medicine is plagued by untrustworthy clinical trials. How many studies are faked or flawed?”
• “What’s worse than a cruel animal experiment? A cruel and fake animal experiment.”
• “Journal Retracts Study That Linked Vaping to Liver Disease.”
• Following legal threats, a journal refuses to retract a paper used to restrict abortion in U.S. court cases. Our coverage of the author’s earlier threats.
• “Costly invite? Scientists hit with massive bills after speaking at COVID-19 ‘webinars.’”
• “Co-creating Research Integrity Education Guidelines for Research Institutions.”
• “A research team’s finding of pre-human burial sites was publicly lauded. Then came the peer reviews.” Important context.
• What happens when researchers raise questions with journal editors who had published work with carefully documented red flags: “two others appeared to find it distasteful that we had raised the subject, implying that we were behaving unprofessionally.”
• “ChatGPT can write a paper in an hour — but there are downsides.”
• “The mysterious case of the disappearing pilot study.”
• “Hedging in Science research articles across 25 years.”
• “Academic publishing is the backbone of science dissemination–but is the current system fit for purpose?”
• “Trials we cannot trust: investigating their impact on systematic reviews and clinical guidelines in spinal pain.”
• “To make academic publishing scholar-led, we need a Norwegian-style dugnad!” argues Per Pippin Aspaas.
• “Reducing the residue of retractions in evidence synthesis: ways to minimise inappropriate citation and use of retracted data.”
• “While crude ghostwriting did occur, much of the literature involved subtler practices through which Monsanto exercised control over content…”
• “Perhaps it was because he loves cats that intriguing photos of lab mice piqued Smut Clyde’s curiosity for what was to be his first investigation into science cheaters.”
• “US Suspends Wuhan Institute Funds Over Covid Stonewalling.”
• “Replacing academic journals.”
• “Open access ‘at any cost’ cannot support scholarly publishing communities.”

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