Ivan Oransky

Weekend reads: Coronavirus meets scientific publishing; publish or perish loses in court; retractions in cancer research

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.

Sending thoughts to our readers and wishing them the best in this uncertain time.

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

JAMA sounding the alarm about coronavirus data;
the retraction of a paper claiming a link between statins and lowered glaucoma risk;
a journal frustrated by a university’s inaction.

Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

Journal slaps 13 expressions of concern on papers suspected of being from a paper mill

The journal Artificial Cells, Nanomedicine, and Biotechnology has attached expressions of concern to 13 papers published in 2019 that a group of sleuths have flagged for potentially being from a paper mill.

In February, Elisabeth Bik wrote on her blog:

Based on the resemblance of the Western blot bands to tadpoles (the larval stage of an amphibian, such as a frog or a toad), we will call this the Tadpole Paper Mill.

Bik explains in her post that she and her colleagues — including pseudonymous sleuths @MortenOxe, @SmutClyde, and @TigerBB8 — had been working on a set of 17 papers that Jennifer Byrne and Jana Christopher had also been scrutinizing:

Keeping coronavirus numbers straight: JAMA sounds an alarm

As Retraction Watch readers know, reporting on the same data more than once — without notifying editors and readers — is bad for the scientific record and can lead to a retraction. Apparently, in the rush to publish findings about the coronavirus pandemic, some researchers are doing just that.

According to an editorial in JAMA today by editor in chief Howard Bauchner and two deputy editors, Robert Golub and Jody Zylke:

“Statins May Cut Glaucoma Risk,” said a New York Times headline. But is that true?

Last year, JAMA Ophthalmology published a study that claimed to find a link between using cholesterol-lowering drugs known as statins and a reduced risk of glaucoma. In a New York Times story on the paper, lead author

Jae H. Kang, an assistant professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, suggested that statins reduce pressure in the eye, help maintain good blood flow and may help protect the optic nerve.

But Kang came to realize, while reviewing the results for another study, that her research had a major error, as she writes in a letter accompanying the retraction and replacement of the study. Kang tells Retraction Watch:

Weekend reads: Museum director sues after suspension; Nobelist ’embroiled in research scandal;’ spider biologist lawyers up after retractions

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

a three-part series on what happened when some researchers tried to correct the sports science literature;
a story of how flawed science involving panthers led to policy decisions;
a journal that declined to retract a retraction.

Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

Weekend reads: A whistleblower is fired; problems in heart research; doing the right thing in science

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

The retraction of a paper claiming that the sun was responsible for global warming
Fake peer review and a made-up author; and
Four retractions following an investigation at the University of Maryland

Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

Weekend reads: A big change in China; revealing a paper mill; plagiarism detection put to the test

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

a letter about coronavirus retracted from a Lancet journal because it turned out not to be a first-person account, as claimed
the retraction of a letter about a vaping paper because the author made up a graduate degree
three more expressions of concern for Hans Eysenck, despite a university’s call for retractions
a ten-year ban for a former OSU and Academia Sinica researcher

Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

Lancet journal retracts letter on coronavirus because authors say it “was not a first-hand account” after all

The Lancet Global Health has swiftly retracted a letter to the editor purportedly describing the experience of nurses treating coronavirus in Wuhan, China, just two days after it was published, because the authors are now saying it “was not a first-hand account.”

In the original letter, the authors write:

Weekend reads: an editor wonders whether data exist, ‘how universities cover up scientific fraud,’ detecting paper mills

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

This is our 5,000th post — and we have a $5,000 matching pledge if you can help us for the next 5,000

In our early days, at our “office,” the former Market Diner

Nine and a half years ago, Adam Marcus and I had an idea: A blog about retractions. Apparently, we needed to convince ourselves that it was a good idea. Otherwise, why would our first post, on Aug. 3, 2010, be titled “Why write a blog about retractions?”

That was post #1. And this, dear reader, is post #5,000. Yes, 5,000.

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