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NIH to researchers: Don’t publish in bad journals, please

The U.S. National Institutes of Health has noticed something: More of the research it’s funding is ending up in questionable journals. Recently, the agency issued a statement highlighting some qualities of these journals — aggressively soliciting submissions, failing to provide clear information about pricing — and urging researchers to avoid them. The NIH’s goal: to “help protect the credibility of papers arising from its research investment.” We asked the NIH for more information about the guide notice; a representative returned responses, asking that we attribute them to the NIH Office of Extramural Research.

Retraction Watch: What prompted the NIH to issue this guide notice? Was there an incident?

Continue reading NIH to researchers: Don’t publish in bad journals, please

Scientist to chemistry journal: “Plse retract this ms ASAP”

The presence of allegedly obvious manipulations in a 2017 chemistry paper has prompted a reader outcry.

Over the last couple of days, a user on PubPeer and others on Twitter have accused the paper of containing clear duplications; the paper was already corrected in August, in which one scientist alleges the authors replaced “an obviously fabricated” figure with a “slightly better photo-shopped one.”

In response, the editor of ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering, David Kaplan, told us:

Continue reading Scientist to chemistry journal: “Plse retract this ms ASAP”

Brazil research foundation sues scientist over $103k scholarship

The São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP), a state-level agency in Brazil that funds scientific research, is suing Paty Karoll Picardi, a protégé of Brazilian diabetes researcher Mario Saad.

According to a São Paulo Court of Justice website, the reason stated is for “recebimento of bolsa de estudos,“ which translates to “receipt of scholarship.” FAPESP is suing for 334,116 Brazilian Reals ($102,927).

Now, Picardi is counter-suing, according to a case document released Nov. 17 — although we’re not sure for what, and why.  Continue reading Brazil research foundation sues scientist over $103k scholarship

New York psychiatry researcher charged with embezzlement, faces jail time

Alexander Neumeister. Source: Yale School of Medicine

A researcher specializing in post-traumatic stress disorder is facing jail time for allegedly embezzling tens of thousands of dollars of federal grant money.

Yesterday, the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) announced criminal charges against Alexander Neumeister, alleging he used the grant funds on trips and meals for family and friends. As the New York Times reported last year, Neumeister was dismissed from his position at New York University (NYU); NYU shut down eight of his studies following an investigation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which found evidence of lax oversight, falsified records, and inaccurate case histories. 

The U.S. Attorney has also filed a civil lawsuit against Neumeister under the False Claims Act, also for misuse of grant funding. The complaint does not specify the total amount of funds he allegedly misused.

In a statement, Acting U.S. Attorney Joon Kim said Neumeister:

Continue reading New York psychiatry researcher charged with embezzlement, faces jail time

Caught Our Notice: 1,376 words of overlap in paper by food researcher Brian Wansink

Via Wikimedia

Title: Change Their Choice! Changing Behavior Using the CAN Approach and Activism Research

What Caught Our Attention: Food researcher Brian Wansink has had a rough time lately. After researchers began scrutinizing his work, he has racked up five retractions and multiple corrections. (We’re counting one retracted paper twice, as Wansink first retracted and replaced it with a new version, then retracted the replacement.)

These notices haven’t gone unnoticed, either by us or other media outlets — BuzzFeed reported on his most recent retraction this weekend, a paper a critic discussed with us, as well. Yesterday, BuzzFeed also reported that Cornell is investigating. (It wouldn’t be the first time — in April, Cornell announced that it had found evidence of mistakes, not misconduct, in Wansink’s papers.)  Below, we present his 13th correction, for duplicated text — 1,376 words of duplicated text, to be exact.

Continue reading Caught Our Notice: 1,376 words of overlap in paper by food researcher Brian Wansink

Where’s the data? Authors can’t support figures in 2017 kidney paper

Researchers have retracted a 2017 paper exploring a novel approach to treat kidney injury, because three images were “constructed inappropriately.”

That’s about as much as we know: The retraction notice provides few details about the nature of the issue, only that the authors—most of whom work at Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine in Hershey—could not provide the original data for the recently published figures.

The paper, published in American Journal of Physiology – Renal Physiology, was retracted October 1, just over four months after appearing online in mid-May. Continue reading Where’s the data? Authors can’t support figures in 2017 kidney paper

Caught Our Notice: To know if someone’s been vaccinated, just asking isn’t enough

Via Wikimedia

Title: Hepatitis B Virus Infection in Preconception Period Among Women of Reproductive Age in Rural China – A Nationwide Study

What Caught Our Attention: When researchers set out to study hepatitis B among women in rural China, and they wanted to know if the women had been vaccinated against the virus, they simply asked them. While that can sometimes be useful, apparently it was a mistake in this case, as the reliance on patient memory injected too much doubt into these findings.  Continue reading Caught Our Notice: To know if someone’s been vaccinated, just asking isn’t enough

US court issues injunction against OMICS to stop “deceptive practices”

A US government agency has won an initial court ruling against OMICS, which the government says will help stop the academic publisher’s deceptive business practices.

Today, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that it won a preliminary injunction in September in its lawsuit against Srinubabu Gedela, CEO of OMICS Group and other companies.

The lawsuit, filed in August 2016, accused the defendants — which include Gedela and OMICS Group, iMedPub, and Conference Series — of deceptive business practices related to journal publishing and scientific conferences. The FTC alleged the defendants used the names of prominent researchers to draw conference attendees, even though the researchers had not agreed to participate; misled readers about whether articles had been peer reviewed; failed to provide authors with transparent information about publishing fees prior to submission; and presented misleading “impact factors” for journals.

On Sept. 29, Judge Gloria Navarro of the US District Court for the District of Nevada, wrote that evidence submitted by the FTC “is sufficient to support a preliminary conclusion that Defendants made misrepresentations regarding their journal publishing” and conferences, and: Continue reading US court issues injunction against OMICS to stop “deceptive practices”

Publisher issues first retractions for fake peer review, starts new checking policy

The publisher Frontiers has retracted four papers in three of its journals after discovering they had been accepted with fake peer reviews.

The problem of fake reviews has been on the research community’s radar since at least 2014, and several major publishers—including Springer, SAGE and BioMed Central—have retracted hundreds of papers accepted via fake peer reviews. But Gearóid Ó Faoleán, the ethics and integrity manager at Frontiers, told us this is the first time Frontiers had had to issue retractions for this reason.

The papers, published between 2015 and 2017, are from researchers based at the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR)–National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science and Technology (NIIST) in Thiruvananthapuram, India. S. Nishanth Kumar is the only author in common to all four paper and a corresponding on two of them; Dileep Kumar, a scientist at CSIR, is a corresponding author on three of the papers.

Ó Faoleán told us: Continue reading Publisher issues first retractions for fake peer review, starts new checking policy

Director of U.S. HHS Office of Research Integrity temporarily removed from post

Kathy Partin

After a tumultuous two years, Kathy Partin is temporarily stepping away from her position as the director of the U.S. Office of Research Integrity.

According to an internal personnel announcement forwarded to us, on December 4, Partin will begin a 90-day stint at the Office of the Vice President for Research at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, which trains health professionals to support the U.S. military.

Partin declined to comment. A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), of which the Office of Research Integrity is a part, told us the agency cannot comment on personnel issues.

Linda Schutjer, a former colleague of Partin’s at Colorado State University, told us Partin was asked to leave:

Continue reading Director of U.S. HHS Office of Research Integrity temporarily removed from post