I was once required to testify in a court case. My lawyer gave me a few pieces of advice, but he repeated one several times, which may be why I remember it. “Never say never,” he said. Or, conversely, never say always. Declarations of absolutes present opposing attorneys too wide an opening. They need to … Continue reading What a database of more than a thousand dismissive literature reviews can tell us
Retraction Watch readers may recall the story of Paolo Macchiarini, about whom we first wrote in 2012 before he became the subject of international scrutiny — and who has now been sentenced to prison. We are pleased to present an excerpt about the Macchiarini case from The Occasional Human Sacrifice: Medical Experimentation and the Price of … Continue reading How the Karolinska protected Paolo Macchiarini — and whistleblowers paid the price
The journal a publication ethics watchdog threatened with sanctions for taking years to retract articles will pull four more related papers, Retraction Watch has learned. Last July, the Committee for Publication Ethics (COPE) sent a warning letter to Elsevier regarding 10 papers by Yoshihiro Sato and Jun Iwamoto, who hold positions four and six on … Continue reading Exclusive: Elsevier journal COPE threatened with sanctions will retract four more articles
An Elsevier journal has retracted seven articles by a prolific data fabricator – three and a half years after the publisher said it would retract 10 of his papers, and five months after the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) threatened the journal with sanctions for the delay. As we previously reported, the Journal of the … Continue reading Exclusive: COPE threatens Elsevier journal with sanctions for ‘clear breakdown’ before seven retractions
A professor at the University of Pittsburgh is suing the institution and two administrators, alleging they discriminated against him because he is Black. The researcher, Moses Bility, an assistant professor of infectious diseases and microbiology in the university’s School of Public Health, alleges the school’s response to a 2020 paper he published and later withdrew … Continue reading Author of paper on COVID-19 and jade amulets sues employer for ‘mental anguish,’ discrimination
Would you consider a donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? The week at Retraction Watch featured: Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to more than 300.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 EndNote, LibKey, Papers, and Zotero. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains 200 titles. And have you … Continue reading Weekend reads: A professor who plagiarized his students; how many postgrads in China think it’s OK to fake data; fighting fraud
Would you consider a donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? The week at Retraction Watch featured: Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 290. There are more than 38,000 retractions in our database — which powers retraction alerts in EndNote, LibKey, Papers, and Zotero. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately — or … Continue reading Weekend reads: Elsevier journal under fire; a researcher’s PhD is revoked; peer review vs. ‘attention-economy hellscapes’
Would you consider a donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance. The week at Retraction Watch featured: Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 277. There are more than 37,000 retractions in our database — which powers retraction alerts in EndNote, LibKey, Papers, and Zotero. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most … Continue reading Weekend reads: Allegations about Stanford’s president; time to pay peer reviewers?; questions about a publisher mount
In July 2017, we notified the Journal of Bone and Mineral Metabolism (JBMM) of concerns about a randomized controlled trial (RCT) in rats which featured, among other problems, extensive duplication of data in a separate publication, large numbers of discrepancies in the methods and results between the publications, and serious concerns about the governance and … Continue reading How many ducks do you need to line up to get a publication retracted?
Would you consider a donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance. The week at Retraction Watch featured: Physics publisher retracting nearly 500 likely paper mill papers Exclusive: NIH researcher resigned amid retractions, including Nature paper Didier Raoult papers earn expressions of concern as criminal investigation gets underway Brain tumor researchers retract paper … Continue reading Weekend reads: Fake reproductive health data alleged; ‘bad brains;’ ‘heinous’ misconduct