Ivan Oransky

Weekend reads: When peer review fails; gender imbalances in citations; COVID-19 science under scrutiny

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The week at Retraction Watch featured:

A paper that took a journal three days to accept — and more than two months to retract
The retraction of a 2012 paper widely derided as racist
The retraction of a paper co-authored by someone no one can find
A retraction of a Nature paper by a Harvard group

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 20.

Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

Weekend reads: A wake-up call?; paper’s author accused of racism; an editor resigns over personal attacks

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

The withdrawal of a COVID-19 scoring tool based on Surgisphere data following NEJM, Lancet retractions
Fallout — including suspensions and resignations — from a controversial essay in a chemistry journal
News of a sixth retraction for a criminology researcher
Two retractions for a prolific anesthesiology researcher

Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

Criminology researcher to lose sixth paper

A criminologist whose work has been under scrutiny for a year is set to have a sixth paper retracted, Retraction Watch has learned.

Last July, Justin Pickett, of the University of Albany at the State University of New York, posted a 27-page explanation of why he was asking for one of his papers to be retracted. The paper in question had been co-authored by Eric A. Stewart, a professor at Florida State University, whose work had been questioned by an anonymous correspondent.

Following pickup of the story by The Chronicle of Higher Education, that paper was eventually retracted, along with four others Stewart co-authored. But that was not the end of the tale.

Group withdraws COVID-19 scoring tool based on Surgisphere data following NEJM, Lancet retractions

On the heels of retractions of papers based on data that has fallen under intense scrutiny, an emergency medicine group in Africa is withdrawing a tool that they built using data from the same company.

Lee Wallis, one of the editors in chief of the African Journal of Emergency Medicine, described the tool, built in a partnership with the African Federation for Emergency Medicine (AFEM) and Surgisphere, in an April 2, 2020 editorial. A PubPeer commenter noted the potential issues today (June 6), and Wallis responded there nearly immediately to say that the tool was withdrawn.

In a statement, AFEM writes:

Weekend reads: Top journals under scrutiny; a toxic legacy; science by press release

It was a particularly busy week at Retraction Watch, featuring retractions from four of the top journals in the world:

A retraction from Nature
The retraction of an Annals of Internal Medicine paper claiming masks didn’t halt the spread of COVID-19
A group of anesthesiologists losing 10 papers at once
Retractions from NEJM and Lancet of highly influential COVID-19 papers

Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

NEJM, Lancet place expressions of concern on controversial studies of drugs for COVID-19

[See update on this story.]

As controversy swirls around two papers that used data from Surgisphere, the New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet have placed expression of concerns on the relevant papers.

Here’s the NEJM expression of concern:

Anesthesiology group loses ten papers at once in one journal

A group of anesthesiology researchers in India has had 10 papers retracted from a single journal because of a “high rate of similarity from various other articles along with overwhelming evidence of data fabrication.”

The retractions came after one of the authors of the papers submitted a manuscript to a different journal whose editor sniffed out issues and raised a red flag.

The Saudi Journal of Anesthesia has retracted ten articles by Anjan Das, of Kolkata, and colleagues:

Top journal retracts study claiming masks ineffective in preventing COVID-19 spread

One of the world’s leading medical journals has retracted a widely circulated paper published in April that concluded that “both surgical and cotton masks seem to be ineffective in preventing the dissemination of SARS–CoV-2 from the coughs of patients with COVID-19 to the environment and external mask surface.”

The study, published by the Annals of Internal Medicine, has been cited by dozens of news stories, nearly 10,000 Twitter users — some of whom raised red flags about its methods — and by the World Health Organization.

But it turns out that the authors failed to consider the limits of the test they were using to detect the presence of coronavirus.

The paper only involved four participants. Apparently, the authors thought a correction — adding more patients — would be enough:

Nature retracts study touted as step toward treatments for bone diseases

A Nature study that could have provided a “potential therapeutic target for osteoporosis and bone metastases of cancer” has been retracted.

Since being published in 2014 by researchers at UT Southwestern, MD Anderson and elsewhere, “miR-34a blocks osteoporosis and bone metastasis by inhibiting osteoclastogenesis and Tgif2” has been cited more than 200 times, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science.

A year ago — on May 24, 2019 — Nature published a correction to the paper:

Weekend reads: Hydroxychloroquine paper earns correction; company allegedly fakes COVID-19 data; why retractions fail

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

A clinical trial about COVID-19 by a convicted felon
A journal that published a critical letter and then said it was a mistake
A retraction with ‘rectitude‘
A group that tried to publish the same paper three times

How many papers about COVID-19 have been retracted? We’ve been keeping track, as part of our database. Here’s our frequently updated list.

Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

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