If your week flew by — we know ours did — catch up here with what you might have missed.
The week at Retraction Watch featured:
- Court dismisses biochemist’s lawsuit against MD Anderson
- Journal retracts depression treatment study with findings called ‘too good to be true’
- New system for flagging retracted papers finds scores of them in Cochrane reviews
- Science flags paper that found AI chatbots help debunk conspiracy theories
In case you missed the news, the Hijacked Journal Checker now has more than 450 entries. The Retraction Watch Database has over 65,000 retractions. Our list of COVID-19 retractions is up to 650, and our mass resignations list has more than 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):
- What are the sanctions for scientific misconduct? They range from nothing to prison, and are unevenly applied, to say the least.
- “Protein name confusion created antibody mix-up affecting hundreds of papers.”
- Former MDPI Publications editors introduce the Journal of Research on Research: On why they built the journal and what it cost them.
- “Doctor and Staff Charged with Falsifying Data in Clinical Drug Trials.”
- “Proposed changes to the federal grant guidance could let political appointees override scientific peer review. The implications for American research are enormous.”
- “NSF imposes stricter conflict-of-interest rules for grant-review panels.”
- Researcher says her team “published in Nature Medicine in 2025 for free. In 2026, it cost us $12,850.”
- Another vaping study has been retracted for data and authorship concerns. The authors had another e-cigarette paper retracted last year that we highlighted in an article on firms offering quick publications to U.S. residency applicants.
- “To maintain trust in open access, we must finally complete the transition.”
- Revised university grants commission guidelines “treat unacknowledged AI use as plagiarism in PhD work.”
- Papers by Chinese authors “around six times more likely to be retracted than those by American or British ones.”
- “Biology Open paid peer review model cuts times to five working days.”
- “Police Tussle With Diabetes Experts at ADA Meeting” after researchers “told they could no longer attend the annual scientific sessions.” The ADA has since apologized, and several members of the organization resigned.
- “Choosing a Journal: What Matters More Than Impact Factor?”
- “AI in peer review: the elephant in the editorial room.”
- “What was not discussed (enough) at the colloquium of the French Research Integrity Office.”
- F1000 preprint server introduces “trust badges” for preprints.
- “How novel is that research paper? Competition to quantify concept crowns winner.”
- “Journal Trends” tool “flags suspicious journals before researchers submit papers.”
- “Key” study for vasculitis medication Tavenos “Under Investigation” at The New England Journal of Medicine.
- Science “does not stop being self-correcting all at once. It becomes slower to self-correct in areas where correction is interpreted as betrayal.”
- The Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment and “the Politics of Academic Judgment.”
- “A framework for the responsible use of bibliometrics in research evaluation.”
- Researcher’s findings “support a reconceptualization of scientific correction as an adaptive layer of epistemic governance rather than a simple accumulation of isolated retractions.”
- “AI can help scientists publish less,” researcher says.
- “Science with military applications is cited more than civilian-only research.”
- “Renowned research sleuth says Stanford University president scandal underlines need for external inquiries when senior staff are accused.”
- “With qualitative research, the risks of data sharing can outweigh the rewards.”
- “The Paradox of Reform Resistance: How Dominant Scientific Structures Convert Reform Pressure into Institutional Reproduction.”
- “Will the widespread use of large language models in scientific writing undermine scientists’ critical thinking?”
- “Why aren’t ethics applications publicly available?”
- “Ninth Circuit on AI Hallucinations” in court cases: Two lawyers suspended.
- “Shared responsibility to address questionable research practices? – A study of perceived efficacy of organizational research integrity policies.”
- “The Lack of Reviewers Pandemic (LRP) – what can be done?”
- “Can an army of babies and dogs rescue psychology from its reproducibility crisis?”
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].