Weekend reads: Institute to stop paying fees for some OA journals; sleuths’ tips for spotting fraud; Bayer sues J&J over ‘false and misleading claims’

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

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

• Journal retracts GLP-1 study after researcher questions central finding
• Chemist nears three dozen retractions for image duplication, self-citation and more
• Heart researcher asked to attend remedial training after OSU misconduct finding, report reveals
• Exclusive: Unrest at Wiley journal whose EIC is cited in more than half of its papers
• Researcher ‘honestly shocked’ to discover name on paper, editor claims misunderstanding

• Plus: Announcing the Retraction Watch Research Accountability Reporting Fellowship
• And a job opening at the Medical Evidence Project

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 to nearly 650, 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.

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

• “Major Chinese funder to stop paying fees for 30 pricey open-access journals.”
• “Five ways to spot when a paper is a fraud”: Sleuths share tips to sniff out fishy articles.
• “Bayer sues J&J over ‘false and misleading claims’ about competing prostate cancer treatments.”
• Our cofounder Ivan Oransky appeared in front of a Canadian parliament committee this week. Watch his testimony here. 
• “New Documents Reveal a Controversial Vaccine Study’s Unusual Path to CDC Approval.” A guest post on the study.
• “Stealth corrections are still a threat to scientific integrity.”
• Cassava says DOJ closed research misconduct investigation.
• “Dragon Kill Points”: Researchers propose strategy for tracking research contributions adapted from multiplayer gaming.
• “Censorship and safety concerns cloud China’s plans to host science journalism conference.”
• “Peer Review Is Breaking Under Its Own Weight.”
• Meet the university in India that tallied 161 retractions in 2025.
• “How a Tortured Conference Becomes a Series: An Analysis of Conference Manipulations.”
• “Puberty blockers: Controversial trial paused over safety concerns.”
• “The more they insult me, in a way, it strengthens me in doing this even more”: A video interview with Elisabeth Bik. 
• “The point of no return? Diagnosing wasted effort in research funding is harder than it looks.” 
• “U.S. science agency moves to restrict foreign scientists from its labs.”
• “Chlorine Dioxide, Raw Camel Milk: The FDA No Longer Warns Against These and Other Ineffective Autism Treatments,” removes webpage warning about products making “false claims” about autism treatments.
• “Judge Rejects Former HBS Professor’s Tenure Lawsuit Against Harvard.”
• “Crackdown on Chinese research misconduct ‘not a game changer.’”
• “Staff at management school say they feel forced to publish in ‘narrow’ subset of elite journals to boost” standing in UK’s Research Excellence Framework.
• “Journal giant Elsevier unveiled an AI tool that scans millions of paywalled papers. Is it worth it?”
• “1 year, 1 publisher, 9,000 books: AI-generated titles flood Korean shelves.”
• Our Ivan Oransky appeared in the radio program “Attitude with Arlie Arnesen” this week to talk about fraud, misconduct and whistleblowers. Listen here. 
• “AI is turning research into a scientific monoculture.”
• “Preregistration Works: Increased Reporting Quality, Internal Validity, and Protocol Adherence in Animal Studies.”
• “Journals set the rules, institutions set the habits” for AI in the editorial workflow: Publisher reflects on International Committee of Medical Journal Editors’ updated recommendations. 
• “Scientific misconduct is not solely the result of individual failings.” A Q&A with the director of the French Office of Scientific Integrity.
• Analysis of four different peer review models finds “no single approach emerges as universally ideal.”
• “Targeted research calls don’t shift scientists’ longer-term publication focus.”
• “What happens when reviewers receive AI feedback in their reviews?”
• “Screening, sorting, and the feedback cycles that imperil peer review.“
• “Pop-up journals for policy research: can temporary titles deliver answers?”

Upcoming Talks 

• “Unsettled Minds“: The New Yorker’s Rachel Aviv in conversation with our Ivan Oransky (March 4, New York University & virtual)
• “Scholarly Metrics in the Age of AI,” featuring our Ivan Oransky (March 16, Denver)
• “Restoring Trust in Science: Storytelling, AI, and Integrity in Scholarly Publishing” featuring our Ivan Oransky (March 26, virtual)

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