Retraction Watch readers may be familiar with partial retractions. They’re rare, and not always appreciated: The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) says that “they’re not helpful because they make it difficult for readers to determine the status of the article and which parts may be relied upon.” Today, the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), which … Continue reading MEDLINE/PubMed will stop identifying partial retractions. Here’s why.
We have a curious case for the “avoiding the p word” files from the Journal of East Asia & International Law. The paper in question, “Border Enforcement of Plant Variety Rights: A Comparison between Japan and Taiwan,” was written by Shun-liang Hsu and appeared in the Spring 2012 issue of the journal. Here are the … Continue reading Heads up: “Borrowing” your student’s work will earn you a partial retraction — and a five-year publishing ban
A paper by a crystallographer fired from his university for misconduct has been partially retracted. Last year, we covered the case of Robert Schwarzenbacher, formerly of Salzburg University. Schwarzenbacher had provided the crystallographic data for a paper in the Journal of Immunology, but those results raised questions with another crystallographer and prompted an investigation by … Continue reading A partial retraction appears for former Salzburg crystallographer who admitted misconduct
Can you retract something that never existed in the first place? At least one journal thinks the answer to that conundrum is yes. That journal would be Medicine. In September 2020, the Wolters Kluwer journal published a paper titled “Tranexamic acid reduces blood cost in long-segment spinal fusion surgery: A randomized controlled study protocol” by … Continue reading Journal retracts a paper it published with a missing table after author fails to provide it
Retraction Watch readers are no doubt familiar with one of the most consequential retractions of this century, namely that of the 1998 paper in The Lancet by Andrew Wakefield and others claiming a link between vaccines and autism. What they may also know is that the paper remains one of the most highly cited retracted … Continue reading Andrew Wakefield’s fraudulent paper on vaccines and autism has been cited more than a thousand times. These researchers tried to figure out why.
We’ve seen partial retractions, and retract-and-replacements, but here’s a first (cue timpanis): The Total Retraction. A Brazilian journal has pulled a 2018 paper on food security for plagiarism — at least, that’s what really happened; the stated reasons are a bit sauced up. According to the notice:
Welcome to our database. We’ve prepared this document to help you get started, and to answer some questions that are likely to come up. This document will evolve as users have more questions, so please feel free to contact us at [email protected]. For details on how we gather data, please see this file. Also please … Continue reading Retraction Watch Database User Guide
In March, a journal published a paper about blood sugar levels in newborns that caused an immediate outcry from outside experts, who were concerned it contained a sentence that could be potentially harmful if misinterpreted by doctors. Recently, the journal explained — in impressive detail — why it’s not retracting the paper. That, of course, … Continue reading A journal decided to correct, rather than retract, a paper that contained “potentially contentious advice.” Do you agree with their call?
Retractions take too long, carry too much of a stigma, and often provide too little information about what went wrong. Many people agree there’s a problem, but often can’t concur on how to address it. In one attempt, a group of experts — including our co-founder Ivan Oransky — convened at Stanford University in December … Continue reading The retraction process needs work. Is there a better way?
A 2011 chemistry paper required corrections so extensive that the author published the changes as a second, longer paper. Both papers, published in the Chinese Journal of Chemistry, described the synthesis of a protein molecule with potential therapeutic applications in cancer. But when the paper’s corresponding author Yikang Wu tried to continue the work, he discovered … Continue reading Chemistry journal issues correction longer than original paper