Ivan Oransky

What happened when a group of sleuths flagged more than 30 papers with errors?

Jennifer Byrne

Retraction Watch readers may recall the name Jennifer Byrne, whose work as a scientific sleuth we first wrote about four years ago, and have followed ever since. In a new paper in Scientometrics, Byrne, of New South Wales Health Pathology and the University of Sydney, working along with researchers including Cyril Labbé, known for his work detecting computer-generated papers, and Amanda Capes-Davis, who works on cell line identification, describe what happened when they approached publishers about errors in 31 papers. We asked Byrne several questions about the work.

Retraction Watch (RW): You focused on 31 papers with a “specific reagent error.” Can you explain what the errors were?

Weekend reads: Prof plagiarized student, says investigation; universities mishandle allegations; what we should learn from ‘bad science’

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:

Meet the postdoc who says he’s been trying to retract his own paper since 2016
Nanotech group that retracted Nature study pulls two more papers
JAMA journal retracts, replaces paper linking nonionizing radiation to ADHD
Former Cleveland Clinic researcher’s papers “more likely than not” included falsified images, says investigation
“Serious non-compliance” prompts retraction of book on social justice in Hawai’i

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 85.

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

“Serious non-compliance” prompts retraction of book on social justice in Hawai’i

A publisher retracted a book last year after the home institution of one of the editors, the University of Hawai’i, “identified research protocol violations by two of the editors, which constitute Serious Non-Compliance.”

The 2019 book, Voices of Social Justice and Diversity in a Hawai‘i Context, was edited by Amarjit Singh and Mike Devine, of Memorial University in Newfoundland, and M. Luafata Simanu-Klutz of the University of Hawai’i.

According to the book’s description, it:

Weekend reads: An editorial board resigns over interference; what a manuscript rejection means; the scientific 1%

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

Exclusive: Ohio State researcher kept six-figure job for more than a year after a misconduct finding
Widely shared vitamin D-COVID-19 preprint removed from Lancet server
‘No malicious intent’: Authors retract week-old Science Advances paper based on embargoed data
Publisher retracting five papers because of “clear evidence” that they were “computer generated”
Third journal scammed by rogue editors
‘Conference organizers have ignored this:’ How common is plagiarism and duplication in abstracts?

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 85.

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

Widely shared vitamin D-COVID-19 preprint removed from Lancet server

A preprint promoted by a member of the UK Parliament for claiming to show that vitamin D led to an “80% reduction in need for ICU and a 60% reduction in deaths” has been removed from a server used by The Lancet family of journals.

The preprint, “Calcifediol Treatment and COVID-19-Related Outcomes,” was posted to Preprints with The Lancet on January 22. On February 13, David Davis, a Conservative member of UK’s Parliament, tweeted:

Publisher retracting five papers because of “clear evidence” that they were “computer generated”

A publisher is retracting five papers from one of its conference series after discovering what it says was “clear evidence” that the articles were generated by a computer.

The five papers were published from 2018 to 2020 in IOP Publishing’s “Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science.” According to an IOP spokesperson, the retraction notices will all read:

‘Conference organizers have ignored this:’ How common is plagiarism and duplication in abstracts?

Harold “Skip” Garner has worn many hats over the course of his career, including plasma physicist, biologist, and administrator. One of his interests is plagiarism and duplication the scientific literature, and he and colleagues developed a tool called eTBLAST that compares text passages to what has already been published to flag potential overlap.

A new paper in Research Integrity and Peer Review by Garner and colleagues estimates “the prevalence of text overlap in biomedical conference abstracts.” We asked Garner some questions about the paper.

Retraction Watch (RW): You used a “text similarity engine” called eTBLAST. What is eTBLAST, and what does it do?

Weekend reads: “Hot-crazy matrix” paper; “comfort women” controversy; COVID-19 vaccine misinformation

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

Eleven papers corrected after nutrition prof fails to disclose patent, company ties
Leading evidence-based group blames pandemic for 9-month delay pulling flawed cancer review
Editors decide not to retract microplastics article but “they feel that it is barely justified”
20 ways to spot the work of paper mills
Why “good PhD students are worth gold!” A grad student finds an error

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 84.

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

Weekend reads: A Holocaust studies misconduct finding; Nature investigating majorana paper; nepotistic journals

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

On COVID-19 PCR testing paper, “the criteria for a retraction of the article have not been fulfilled”
Engineering professor up to nine retractions for image problems
Litigious OSU professor loses appeal in federal defamation case
Okinawa researcher suspended for faking data denies committing misconduct
Mathematician ranked as Clarivate “highly cited researcher” has third paper retracted
Okinawa university suspends researcher for six months following findings of plagiarism and faked data
Researcher to overtake Diederik Stapel on the Retraction Watch Leaderboard, with 61
Journal pulls two studies that listed an author without his permission
Springer Nature to retract chapter on sign language critics call “unbelievably insulting”

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 83.

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

On COVID-19 PCR testing paper, “the criteria for a retraction of the article have not been fulfilled”

Two months after announcing it would review an early 2020 paper on a way to detect the virus that causes COVID-19, a journal says that “the criteria for a retraction of the article have not been fulfilled.”

The review of the paper, “Detection of 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) by real-time RT-PCR, by the journal, Eurosurveillance, was prompted by critiques including a petition by some 20 people around the world for what they called “scientific and methodological blemishes.” The senior author of the Eurosurveillance paper, Christian Drosten, of the Charité University Hospital in Berlin, has been a leader in the fight against the pandemic, but has also predictably drawn criticism from those who oppose lockdowns.

On December 3, the journal issued a statement saying they were reviewing the allegations, which, as editors note in their statement dated yesterday:

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