by journal – Page 11 – Retraction Watch

‘Deeply unfair’: First author of newly retracted paper on weight and honesty speaks out

The first author of a highly controversial — and now retracted — paper linking body weight to integrity calls the journal’s decision to pull the article “a bitter surprise” and its handling of the article after publication “deeply unfair.”

Eugenia Polizzi di Sorrentino

The article, “Dishonesty is more affected by BMI status than by short-term changes in glucose,” was published in Scientific Reports in July and retracted this week. Eugenia Polizzi di Sorrentino, of the Institute of Cognitive Science and Technologies at the National Research Center, in Rome, who along with her colleagues disagreed with the retraction, told us:

Springer Nature journal retracts BMI, honesty paper

More than five months after outraged readers demanded that a Springer Nature journal retract a paper linking body mass index to honesty, the publication has been pulled.

The journal now says that a post-publication review of the article found that the data don’t support the authors’ conclusions — which is another way of saying that the pre-publication peer review missed that fact.

Publication by Scientific Reports of the article, “Dishonesty is more affected by BMI status than by short-term changes in glucose,” last July caused consternation on social media, as readers wondered what they were reading and why the journal had agreed to publish the study, as well as on the journal’s website.

PLOS ONE retracts paper purporting to be about lung ultrasound for COVID-19 but that had suspicious overlap with pre-pandemic article

PLOS ONE has retracted a paper on pneumonia in people with Covid-19 after the authors could not allay concerns about the integrity of their data.

The article, “Lung ultrasound score in establishing the timing of intubation in COVID-19 interstitial pneumonia: A preliminary retrospective observational study,” appeared in September and was written by a group from Zhejiang University School of Medicine, in Hangzhou, China.

About three months after publication, PLOS ONE issued an expression of concern about the article, citing suspicious overlap with a 2018 paper in a different journal. It concluded:

Nature Communications retracts much-criticized paper on mentorship

A month after announcing it would be conducting a “priority” investigation into a November 17 paper that claimed women in science fare better with male rather than female mentors, Nature Communications has retracted the article.

In the article, “The association between early career informal mentorship in academic collaborations and junior author performance,” the authors — a trio from New York University’s campus in Abu Dhabi — write that “While current diversity policies encourage same-gender mentorships to retain women in academia, our findings raise the possibility that opposite-gender mentorship may actually increase the impact of women who pursue a scientific career.” It drew nearly immediate criticism, for example:

The recent @NatureComms paper doesn’t tell us much about the impact of gender on mentorship but it sure does tell us that the statistics community needs to do a better job teaching scientists about correlation, causation, and confounding
— Daniela Witten (@daniela_witten) November 19, 2020

On November 19, the journal added an editor’s note saying it would be looking into these criticisms, and today, the article was retracted following review by three experts. The retraction notice reads, in part:

U Maryland virus researcher up to 13 retractions

A veterinary researcher at the University of Maryland has lost seven papers for problematic images and other issues, bringing his retraction total to 13.

Siba Samal, who studies viruses and vaccines, lost four of his articles in March after journals determined that figures in the papers were unreliable. And he was a co-author on papers flagged in a U.S. Office of Research Integrity finding of misconduct by another researcher.

Some of those questions were raised — first, it seems — by Elisabeth Bik, who in November 2015 reported her concerns to PLOS ONE about a different one of Samal’s articles, which she also flagged on PubPeer.

The journal is now retracting that article, titled “Evaluation of the replication, pathogenicity, and immunogenicity of Avian Paramyxovirus (APMV) serotypes 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, and 9 in Rhesus macaques.” According to the retraction notice:

COVID-19 pneumonia paper earns expression of concern — for being similar to a pre-pandemic article

Researchers in China have received an expression of concern for a recent paper on COVID-19 pneumonia after editors were alerted to suspicious similarities between the tables in the article and those in a 2018 study by members of the same group.

In case you missed that: The pandemic started long after 2018.

Nature Communications looking into paper on mentorship after strong negative reaction

A Nature journal has announced that it is conducting a “priority” investigation into a new paper claiming that women in science fare better with male rather than female mentors.

The article, “The association between early career informal mentorship in academic collaborations and junior author performance,” appeared in Nature Communications on November 17, and was written by a trio of authors from New York University’s campus in Abu Dhabi.

According to the abstract:

Science retracts paper co-authored by high-profile scientist and former Dutch minister

Science has retracted a 13-year-old paper, five years after data sleuth Elisabeth Bik first raised questions about issues with the images in the article.

The paper, “Secondary siRNAs result from unprimed RNA synthesis and form a distinct class,” appeared in 2007 and was written by a group of researchers in the Netherlands and Switzerland. The senior author of the study was Ronald Plasterk, founder of Frame Cancer Therapeutics in Amsterdam and once a minister in the Dutch government. The article has been cited at least 300 times, according to Clarivate Analytics Web of Science.

It also drew Bik’s attention. In 2015, she posted — as Peer 1 — on PubPeer about her concerns with one of the figures in the paper. Other commenters joined in, including to point out similarities between images in the Science paper and two other articles from members of the group.

Bik said the paper:

Paper suggesting vitamin D might protect against COVID-19 earns an expression of concern

PLOS ONE has issued an expression of concern for a paper it published last month suggesting that vitamin D might protect against severe COVID-19.

Central to the concerns is that the authors seem to have been too far out over their skis in asserting a link between the vitamin and the response to the infection. But as the EoC reveals, many of the potential problems can fairly be attributed to porous peer review as much as over-ambitious authors.

The article, “Vitamin D sufficiency, a serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D at least 30 ng/mL reduced risk for adverse clinical outcomes in patients with COVID-19 infection,” came from a group at Tehran University of Medical Sciences in Iran and Boston University in the United States. According to the authors:

BMJ journal retracts, replaces study on chronic fatigue in children

A BMJ journal has retracted and replaced a paper on chronic fatigue in children after admitting that it misrepresented the nature of the research in the editing process. But the article has drawn scrutiny beyond merely the characterization of the analysis.

The paper, “Cognitive–behavioural therapy combined with music therapy for chronic fatigue following Epstein-Barr virus infection in adolescents: a feasibility study,” appeared in early April in BMJ Paediatrics Open, and was written by a group in Norway. The paper is technically not about chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), but in the introduction the authors write:

If accompanied by other symptoms, such as exertion intolerance, chronic pain and cognitive impairments, the patient might fulfil one of the diagnostic criteria for chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: