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Reports of misconduct investigations can tell us a lot. Here are more than a dozen of them.

the waving cat, via Flickr

Fakery. Ignored whistleblowers. Sabotage. Subterfuge.

Reading reports of institutional investigations into allegations of misconduct can sometimes feel like reading a spy novel about science. And we’ve read a lot of them.

In a recent post that drew from one such report, we wrote:

Whenever we learn about misconduct cases at public universities, we file such public records requests to obtain more information because we believe, as did Justice Louis Brandeis, that sunlight is the best disinfectant.

But just as retraction notices are often unhelpful and even misleading, suggesting a lack of transparency, reports of institutional investigations can leave a lot to be desired, and reveal flaws in the the process that lead to them. As we and C.K. Gunsalus noted recently in JAMA:

Continue reading Reports of misconduct investigations can tell us a lot. Here are more than a dozen of them.

Weekend reads: The fall of a Crossfit science watchdog; a CDC retraction about suicides; “superb subterfuge” by predatory journals

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 a critic with more than two dozen retractions; why twenty journals were punished; and why 35,000 papers may be eligible for retraction. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
Continue reading Weekend reads: The fall of a Crossfit science watchdog; a CDC retraction about suicides; “superb subterfuge” by predatory journals

35,000 papers may need to be retracted for image doctoring, says new paper

Elisabeth Bik

Yes, you read that headline right.

In a new preprint posted to bioRxiv, image sleuths scanned hundreds of papers published over a seven-year period in Molecular and Cellular Biology (MCB), published by the American Society for Microbiology (ASM). The researchers — Arturo Casadevall of Johns Hopkins University, Elisabeth Bik of uBiome, Ferric Fang of the University of Washington (also on the board of directors of our parent non-profit organization), Roger Davis of the University of Massachusetts (and former MCB editor), and Amy Kullas, ASM’s publication ethics manager — found 59 potentially problematic papers, of which five were retracted. Extrapolating from these findings and those of another paper that scanned duplication rates, the researchers propose that tens of thousands of papers might need to be purged from the literature. That 35,000 figure is double the amount of retractions we’ve tallied so far in our database, which goes back to the 1970s. We spoke with the authors about their findings — and how to prevent bad images from getting published in the first place.

Retraction Watch: You found 59 potential instances of inappropriate duplication — how did you define this, and validate that the images were problematic?

Continue reading 35,000 papers may need to be retracted for image doctoring, says new paper

University recommends researcher be fired after misconduct finding

Suchitra Sumitran-Holgersson

The University of Gothenburg has requested the dismissal of a researcher who has been found guilty of scientific misconduct in seven articles.

The researcher, Suchitra Sumitran-Holgersson, is “guilty of research misconduct through intentional fabrication, falsification or suppression of basic material and deliberately abandoning good scientific practice in seven of the reviewed articles,” according to a press release from the University of Gothenburg (GU). Sumitran-Holgersson continues to insist any issues were the result of “unfortunate errors,” not misconduct.

As a consequence, GU vice-chancellor Eva Wiberg has:

Continue reading University recommends researcher be fired after misconduct finding

Retracted papers keep being cited as if they weren’t retracted. Two researchers suggest how Elsevier could help fix that.

Gali Halevi

Judit Bar-Ilan

As many readers know, even after a paper’s retracted, it will continue to be cited — often by researchers who don’t realize the findings are problematic. But when, and in what context, do those citations occur? In a recent paper in Scientometrics, Judit Bar-Ilan of Bar-Ilan University in Israel and Gali Halevi at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York examine what happened to nearly 1,000 retracted papers over time, including how long it took to pull them, and when and how often they continue to be cited. We spoke with Bar-Ilan and Halevi about what worries them about their findings — and why they believe Elsevier could help fix the problem.

Retraction Watch: As you note, there have been a number of studies of retractions. What do you hope this study contributes?

Continue reading Retracted papers keep being cited as if they weren’t retracted. Two researchers suggest how Elsevier could help fix that.

High-profile indexing service punishes 20 journals, issues unusual warning about five others

If scientific publishing were the World Cup, twenty scientific journals are being effectively taken out of competition today. And five others are being given a stern first-time warning.

Every year, Clarivate Analytics, a company that indexes more than 11,000 journals — and which, in turn, designates their powerful, but controversial, Impact Factors and rankings, based on citation rates — issues an annual report, noting how journals’ metrics changed, and which ones showed worrisome behavior that might be an attempt to game the system, such as citing themselves too frequently. And this year is no different: In this year’s Journal Citation Reports (JCR), Clarivate is stripping 20 journals of their Impact Factors by suppressing them from the rankings. Continue reading High-profile indexing service punishes 20 journals, issues unusual warning about five others

Karolinska finds Macchiarini, six other researchers guilty of misconduct

Paolo Macchiarini

Former super-star surgeon Paolo Macchiarini is guilty of misconduct, along with six of his co-authors — including one who initially help alert authorities to problems with Macchiarini’s work, according to an announcement today by his former institution, the Karolinska Institute.

KI is also calling to retract six articles co-authored by Macchiarini and his colleagues, including two highly cited papers in The Lancet. The papers described the procedure and outcomes of transplanting synthetic tracheas into three patients between 2011 and 2013.

KI’s investigation uncovered “serious inaccuracies and misleading information in the reviewed articles:”

Continue reading Karolinska finds Macchiarini, six other researchers guilty of misconduct

A critic with more than two dozen retractions can’t seem to stop plagiarizing

A mysterious lit and film critic who built a significant portion of his career using the words of other scholars instead of writing his own appears to be attempting a second act.  

Last year, Richard-Lawrence Etienne Barnett, who has lost more than two dozen papers for plagiarism, published a book called “The Adversarial Text,” which appears to have a rather cozy relationship with four of his retracted articles. The apparent purloinment was first reported by Volker Schröder, a scholar of French and Italian at Princeton University who has been following the Barnett case for the better part of two decades.

In 2001, Schroeder found that

Continue reading A critic with more than two dozen retractions can’t seem to stop plagiarizing

Weekend reads: Bragging about burying bad science; women still underrepresented in Nature; does brilliance justify bad behavior?

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 a look at a dozen scientific sleuths; the story of how gambling got in the way of a promising scientific career; and details on why a misconduct probe took more than four years. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: Continue reading Weekend reads: Bragging about burying bad science; women still underrepresented in Nature; does brilliance justify bad behavior?

A journal decided to correct, rather than retract, a paper that contained “potentially contentious advice.” Do you agree with their call?

In March, a journal published a paper about blood sugar levels in newborns that caused an immediate outcry from outside experts, who were concerned it contained a sentence that could be potentially harmful if misinterpreted by doctors.

Recently, the journal explained — in impressive detail — why it’s not retracting the paper. That, of course, gives readers the ability to form their own opinions. After seeing the pros and cons, let us know if you think the journal made the right call in a poll at the bottom of the story.

When it first appeared, the paper — “Newborn plasma glucose concentration nadirs by gestational-age group,” published by Neonatology — included this sentence in its abstract:

In order to potentially prevent low glucose concentrations at the time of the nadir, exogenous glucose should be provided to all newborns as soon as possible after birth.

According to an editorial note published by the journal’s editors, that caused immediate concern for outside experts:

Continue reading A journal decided to correct, rather than retract, a paper that contained “potentially contentious advice.” Do you agree with their call?