Ivan Oransky

Weekend reads: Legal threats, lawsuits, a professor loses emeritus status, and ‘the 60-Year-Old Scientific Screwup That Helped Covid Kill’

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The week at Retraction Watch featured:

Paper linking frequency of Google search terms to violence against women retracted
Oh, the gall(stones): A journal should retract a paper on reiki and pain, says a critic
‘The notices are utterly unhelpful’: A look at how journals have handled allegations about hundreds of papers
Paper likening human sperm to “playful otters” retracted
Researcher loses medical degree for using paper mill to write his dissertation
How can universities and journals work together better on misconduct allegations?
‘Preprints are works in progress’: The tale of a disappearing COVID-19 paper

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 126.

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

‘The notices are utterly unhelpful’: A look at how journals have handled allegations about hundreds of papers

Retraction Watch readers may recall the names Jun Iwamoto and Yoshihiro Sato, who now sit in positions 3 and 4 of our leaderboard of retractions, Sato with more than 100. Readers may also recall the names Andrew Grey, Alison Avenell and Mark Bolland, whose sleuthing was responsible for those retractions. In a recent paper in in Accountability in Research, the trio looked at the timeliness and content of the notices journals attached to those papers. We asked them some questions about their findings.

Retraction Watch (RW): Your paper focuses on the work of Yoshihiro Sato and Jun Iwamoto. Tell us a bit about this case.

How can universities and journals work together better on misconduct allegations?

Retractions, expressions of concern, and corrections often arise from reader critiques sent by readers, whether those readers are others in the field, sleuths, or other interested parties. In many of those cases, journals seek the input of authors’ employers, often universities. In a recent paper in Research Integrity and Peer Review, longtime scientific publishing consultant Elizabeth Wager and Lancet executive editor Sabine Kleinert, writing on behalf of the Cooperation & Liaison between Universities & Editors (CLUE) group, offer recommendations on best practice for these interactions. Here, they respond to several questions about the paper.

Retraction Watch (RW): Many would say that journals can take far too long to act on retractions and other signaling to readers about problematic papers. Journals (as well as universities) often point to the need for due process. So what would a “prompt” response look like, as recommended by the paper?

Weekend reads: Government interference in research; ‘mega’ reviewers; tobacco funding draws scrutiny

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

Drug company withdraws court motion requesting retraction of papers critical of its painkiller
“Yep, pretty slow”: Nutrition researchers lose six papers
“We didn’t want to hurt them. We are polite”: When a retraction notice pulls punches
Who owns your thesis data? We do, says one university, prompting retraction
Clinical trial paper that made anemia drug look safer than it is will be retracted
Authors yank ketamine study, hoping it will go away without attention, and journal obliges

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 125.

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

Weekend reads: Allegations about exploitative research; COVID-19 retractions; how to get cited more often

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

Ecologist who lost thesis awards earns expressions of concern after laptop stolen
Prominent Chinese scientist failed to disclose company ties in COVID-19 clinical trial paper
Paper on ‘energy medicine’ retracted after reader complaints
Rejection overruled, retraction ensues when annoyed reviewer does deep dive into data
Years after faked peer review concerns surfaced, journals are still falling for it

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 124.

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

Weekend reads: COVID-19 issue pulled; an author announces a retraction; FDA sanctions a company for not publishing results

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

Editor declines to correct paper with duplicated image after earlier study disappears
Elsevier journal to retract widely debunked masks study whose author claimed a Stanford affiliation
Journal retracts paper by ‘miracle doctor’ claiming life force kills cancer cells
On the perils of scientific collaboration from thousands of miles away
Mask study was “misleading” and misquotes citations, says Elsevier
Paper partly funded by controversial stem cell company retracted

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 122.

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

Mask study was “misleading” and misquotes citations, says Elsevier

Three days after we reported that Elsevier would be retracting a paper about COVID-19 and masks whose author claimed a false affiliation with Stanford, the publisher tells us that the “paper is misleading,” “misquotes and selectively cites published papers,” and that the data in one table is “unverified.”

As we noted earlier this week:

The 2020 paper, “Facemasks in the COVID-19 era: A health hypothesis,” was written by Baruch Vainshelboim, who listed his affiliation as Stanford University and the VA Palo Alto Health System. But the study gained wide circulation earlier this month, thanks in part to some conservative politicians, and became the subject of fact-checks by the Associated Press and Snopes…

Here is Elsevier’s statement in full:

Weekend reads: Prof resigns as student’s suicide is investigated; the ‘Stanford’ mask study that Stanford disowned; indictments and a prison sentence

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

“[N]o intention to make any scientific fraud” as researchers lose four papers
‘Unfair and unsubstantiated’: Journal retracts paper suggesting smoking is linked to lower COVID-19 risk
Two retractions spotlight the ethical challenges of consent for case reports

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 122.

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

Weekend reads: ‘The Damage Campaign;’ timber industry retracts comments, apologizes; COVID-19 vaccine study conflicts disclosure

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

Palmitoleic acid paper pulled for data concerns
Pharma company demands retraction, damages in lawsuit against journal
You want to do what? Paper on anal swabs for COVID-19 retracted for ethical issues
University in Japan revokes doctorate for plagiarism of text, image
One in six of the papers you cite in a review has been retracted. What do you do?
The rector who resigned after plagiarizing a student’s PhD thesis

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 121.

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

Pharma company demands retraction, damages in lawsuit against journal

A drug company that manufactures a painkiller used for surgery patients has sued an anesthesiology journal along with its editor and publisher and the authors of articles that it says denigrated its product unfairly.

In a complaint filed yesterday in U.S. District Court in New Jersey, Pacira Biosciences claims that “In the February 2021 issue of Anesthesiology, the ASA, reflecting a bias against EXPAREL amongst the editorial staff at Anesthesiology, published three articles, and other related content, that seriously disparage Pacira’s product EXPAREL,” an FDA-approved drug which they say is “a non-opioid pain medication proven to prolong post-surgery pain relief.”

In seeking retractions, compensatory and punitive damages exceeding $75,000 — the threshold for U.S. federal court — and lawyers’ fees, the company’s attorneys at Latham & Watkins write:

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