Ivan Oransky

Weekend reads: Calls for retraction a bad idea?; is scientific fraud a crime?

This week at Retraction Watch featured an unusual excuse for missing data, and a guilty plea in court for misconduct. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: Continue reading Weekend reads: Calls for retraction a bad idea?; is scientific fraud a crime?

Tribeca Film Festival pulls Wakefield vaccine film from schedule

This isn’t a scientific paper being retracted, but given the subject, and that we led Weekend Reads with it this morning, we think it merits a post: A film by Andrew Wakefield, infamous for the now-retracted paper he co-authored in The Lancet linking autism and vaccines, has been withdrawn from the prestigious Tribeca Film Festival.

The announcement of the Tribeca lineup, which included the film, “Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe,” earlier this week was met with surprise and objections. As of yesterday, however, festival co-founder Robert De Niro defended the screening, saying he and his wife, who have a child with autism, thought it was “critical that all of the issues surrounding the causes of autism be openly discussed and examined.”

De Niro has apparently changed his mind. As per Jezebel, here is De Niro’s statement from this afternoon (Saturday): Continue reading Tribeca Film Festival pulls Wakefield vaccine film from schedule

Weekend reads: Fraudster rises again as filmmaker; Elsevier, open access publisher?; unethical ethics research

The week at Retraction Watch featured the retraction of a paper on the potential dangers of Wi-Fi, and our 3,000th post. Also, have you taken our survey? Here’s what was happening elsewhere: Continue reading Weekend reads: Fraudster rises again as filmmaker; Elsevier, open access publisher?; unethical ethics research

NEJM: No plan to clarify wording that led to allegations of breached confidentiality

The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) has no plans to change the wording of an article that led to allegations of breached patient confidentiality and caused a minor social media firestorm this past weekend, the journal told Retraction Watch.

The paragraph in question appeared in an essay by Lisa Rosenbaum chronicling the history of power morcellation, a technique to remove gynecological organs that the FDA has subjected to a “black box warning” because it can also spread tumors: Continue reading NEJM: No plan to clarify wording that led to allegations of breached confidentiality

Weekend reads: Publishing hypocrisy; false truths; scientists go rogue

This week at Retraction Watch featured a heartfelt essay by John Ioannidis on what he called the hijacking of evidence-based medicine, as well as the story of a peer reviewer who stole text for his own paper. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: Continue reading Weekend reads: Publishing hypocrisy; false truths; scientists go rogue

“Evidence-based medicine has been hijacked:” A confession from John Ioannidis

John Ioannidis is perhaps best known for a 2005 paper “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False.” One of the most highly cited researchers in the world, Ioannidis, a professor at Stanford, has built a career in the field of meta-research. Earlier this month, he published a heartfelt and provocative essay in the the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology titled “Evidence-Based Medicine Has Been Hijacked: A Report to David Sackett.” In it, he carries on a conversation begun in 2004 with Sackett, who died last May and was widely considered the father of evidence-based medicine. We asked Ioannidis to expand on his comments in the essay, including why he believes he is a “failure.”

Retraction Watch: You write that as evidence-based medicine “became more influential, it was also hijacked to serve agendas different from what it originally aimed for.” Can you elaborate? Continue reading “Evidence-based medicine has been hijacked:” A confession from John Ioannidis