Author: Ivan Oransky

Before we present this week’s Weekend Reads, a question: Do you enjoy our weekly roundup? If so, we could really use your help. Would you consider a tax-deductible donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance.

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

• Paper on canine gastrointestinal illness dogged by lack of disclosures
• Scholar with a history of making up author names has a 1985 paper corrected
• Student of yoga tourism won’t get PhD as he earns five retractions
• Researchers sound alarm on ‘predatory’ rankings
• Paper on sexual orientation and neuropsychiatric disorders earns an expression of concern
• Pentagon-funded Duke research on soldier brain damage under investigation

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 200. There are now more than 31,000 retractions in our database — which now powers retraction alerts in EndNote, Papers, and Zotero. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately?

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

Continue reading Weekend reads: Hundreds of researchers in China sanctioned; phony finance research; results of the cancer research reproducibility project

Before we present this week’s Weekend Reads, a question: Do you enjoy our weekly roundup? If so, we could really use your help. Would you consider a tax-deductible donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance.

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

• Our co-founder Ivan Oransky presented oral evidence to the UK Parliament’s Science and Technology Committee on Wednesday. (His panel begins at time stamp 11:15. Coverage here.)
• AHA “regrets any confusion” and is reviewing meeting policies after outcry over Covid-19 vaccine abstract
• Engineering researcher who suddenly left postdoc has ninth paper retracted
• Authors retract, resubmit “very poorly conducted” meta-analysis of COVID-19 treatment
• Abstract linking COVID-19 vaccines to heart trouble risk earns expression of concern
• Journal retracts three papers — including two on COVID-19 — because ‘trainee editor’ committed misconduct
• Exclusive: Shell employee confesses to graduate student misdeeds

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 199. There are now more than 31,000 retractions in our database — which now powers retraction alerts in EndNote, Papers, and Zotero. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately?

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

Continue reading Weekend reads: Chair leaves post during investigation of double-dipping allegations; geoscientist fined; prof claims another’s papers are hers

Before we present this week’s Weekend Reads, a question: Do you enjoy our weekly roundup? If so, we could really use your help. Would you consider a tax-deductible donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance.

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

• Nanotech paper retracted for duplicated images
• Group’s second paper on potential treatments for COVID-19 is retracted
• University of Glasgow ‘in discussions to retract’ seven papers, confirming Retraction Watch reporting
• Highly cited cancer immunologist “seriously breached” research conduct code: Australia institute
• Journal mulls expression of concern for Cassava Sciences paper
• Author who squats on domains to fake affiliations and added Wolf Blitzer as a co-author up to a dozen retractions

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 192. There are now more than 31,000 retractions in our database — which now powers retraction alerts in EndNote, Papers, and Zotero. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately?

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

Continue reading Weekend reads: Nepotism in journals; the lessons of the ‘lab leak’ theory; four decades of research misconduct

Before we present this week’s Weekend Reads, a question: Do you enjoy our weekly roundup? If so, we could really use your help. Would you consider a tax-deductible donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance.

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

• Publisher retracts nearly 80 articles over three days
• PNAS retracts paper that contributed to lung cancer trial
• ‘I have zero complaints about the process’: Post-publication analysis earns perception paper a flag
• Co-author of paper claiming COVID-19 vaccines linked to miscarriage says he’s retracting it
• Elsevier makes “sand, sun, sea and sex with strangers” paper disappear following criticism. And “Sand, sun, sea and sex with strangers” paper did not need human subjects research protection approval, says author
• Stanford prof fights efforts to make him pay at least $75,000 in legal fees after dropping defamation suit

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 190. There are now more than 31,000 retractions in our database — which now powers retraction alerts in EndNote, Papers, and Zotero. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately?

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

Continue reading Weekend reads: An error in a PLOS journal leads to angry calls to Fauci; Jonathan Pruitt placed on leave; Cassava Sciences under SEC investigation

Welcome to another edition of Weekend Reads. Because our site was down for several days starting last Saturday morning, there was no Weekend Reads last week, and this is a double edition.

Before we present this week’s Weekend Reads, a question: Do you enjoy our weekly roundup? If so, we could really use your help. Would you consider a tax-deductible donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance.

The last two weeks at Retraction Watch featured:

• IEEE retracts plagiarized paper after Retraction Watch inquiries
• Exclusive: University of Glasgow seeking retraction of multiple papers after findings of image manipulation
• Behavioral ecologist Jonathan Pruitt’s PhD dissertation withdrawn
• Science journal retracts paper after university investigation finds ‘carelessness and lack of attention to detail’
• ‘Clear evidence of theft’ brings down meningitis paper with dodgy images
• Bad MATH+? Covid treatment paper by Pierre Kory retracted for flawed results
• Anatomy journal retracts 13 papers
• Springer Nature geosciences journal retracts 44 articles filled with gibberish
• Astronomer apologizes, withdraws preprint slated for PNAS about impact in the field after criticism
• Ivermectin-COVID-19 study retracted; authors blame file mixup
• Paper on how trans youth come of age is retracted following ethics board investigation
• HHS takes three and a half years to tell us “there are no records responsive to your request”…for a letter we know exists

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 190. There are now more than 31,000 retractions in our database — which now powers retraction alerts in EndNote, Papers, and Zotero. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately?

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

Continue reading Weekend reads, double edition: Scamming journals to publish gibberish; a whole issue with nothing but retractions; ‘the unbearable lightness of scientometric indices’