Weekend reads: Why authors keep citing retracted studies; patients over papers; final ruling in Hwang case

Here’s our first post of 2016. The week at Retraction Watch featured a retraction from JAMA, and our list of most-cited retracted papers. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

• Why do researchers keep citing retracted papers? In Quartz, Keith Collins analyzes our top-cited retracted papers list.
• “There is something rotten in the state of science,” writes Pierre Barthélémy in Le Monde, rounding up news of recent fake peer review retractions (in French).
• South Korea’s Supreme Court has “ruled that the dismissal of disgraced stem cell scientist Hwang Woo-suk by Seoul National University was legal,” KBS reports.
• Philip Moriarty comes “not to pillory, but to praise the [Engineering and Physics Sciences Research Council] for its stance on impact.”
• Prioritize patients above papers, says Nobelist Shinya Yamanaka.
• Should all scientific papers be anonymous? Our latest STAT column.
• Is biomedical research a house of cards? Gerald Lushington — who was censured by the U.S. Office of Research Integrity four years ago — and Rathnam Chaguturu take a look (sub req’d).
• A look at citation patterns for economics papers, via Andrew Gelman.
• Jeffrey Beall has some insights about Insight Medical Publishing, and they’re not good.
• The U.S. NSF should be willing to fund grants that are likely to fail, says The Grumpy Geophysicist.
• “Some publishers add new journal titles more often than I buy new shoes,” says Science editor-in-chief Marcia McNutt. We wonder who she could possibly be talking about…
• “Retractions, Post-Publication Peer Review, and Fraud: Scientific Publishing’s Wild West.” A report on co-founder Ivan Oransky’s McGovern Address to the American Medical Writers Association.
• “Science journalists are not science advocates,” writes Brooke Borel in The Guardian. “And scientists aren’t science.”
• “Tissues from millions of Americans are used in research without their knowledge,” writes Rebecca Skloot in The New York Times.
• “How researchers dupe the public with a sneaky practice called ‘outcome switching.’” Vox’s Julia Belluz talks to Ben Goldacre about the Compare Project.
• Should the US National Library of Medicine index anti-choice journals? asks Jen Gunter.
• “Silicon Valley is confusing pseudo-science with innovation,” say Elizabeth Lopatto and Ben Popper in The Verge.
• “A tiny Canadian company and a powerful U.S. government research agency are locked in an unusual spat over the safety of a popular anti-blindness supplement, amid accusations both sides’ scientific opinions are tainted by commercial interests,” the National Post reports.
• There’s a fine line between quality improvement and medical research, says David Gorski.
• Here were the most ridiculous health claims of 2015, according to Julia Belluz of of Vox.
• Eighteen of the 180 original signers of a letter requesting the retraction of a corrected BMJ investigative feature are not listed on an updated version, Peter Heimlich reports.

Retractions Outside of The Scientific Literature

• “Nigerian Tribune Issues Retraction And Apology Over Purported Interview With Professor Sagay.” Just because someone answers the phone doesn’t mean they’re who you thought they were.
• This year’s unsung newsmaker? The delete key, says Bob Mackin of The Tyee.
• The lawyer for two baseball players is demanding that Al Jazeera retract a report that they used performance-enhancing drugs.

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