Category: sage

Eight months after a psychology journal retracted a pair of articles that were “unethical, scientifically flawed, and based on racist ideas and agenda,” the publication has pulled three more papers — all at least a quarter century old — for the same reason. 

All five papers were written by J. Philippe Rushton, formerly of the University of Western Ontario, who died in 2012.  As we wrote in December 2020, Rushton published dubious studies that promoted tropes of white supremacy, including that Blacks are less intelligent than whites and that:

Continue reading Journal retracts more articles for being “unethical, scientifically flawed, and based on racist ideas and agenda”

Move over, Reviewer 2: The legal reviewer wants your job. 

Last month, I was relieved when the journal Research Ethics published my article, “The Use of Confidentiality and Anonymity Protections as a Cover for Fraudulent Fieldwork Data.” One unexpected hurdle had almost thwarted publication. The problem wasn’t with the proverbial hard-to-please peer reviewer called Reviewer 2. Rather, the problem was with a behind-the-scenes reviewer of a different sort, Legal Reviewer 1.

I suspect that many authors have never heard of a legal reviewer. Yet depending on your research topics, you may have had your manuscripts delayed—or even rejected—without ever knowing of the powerful influence of persons in that role. In my case, the journal editor was candid in telling me that my manuscript would be sent to a “legal team” after clearing peer review.

Continue reading The peer reviewers and editor wanted to publish my paper. The legal team rejected it.

An integrative health journal has retracted a 2019 paper two months after issuing an expression of concern about the article distancing itself from the work. 

The paper, which appeared in Global Advances in Health and Medicine, was a review of “energy medicine” by Christina Ross, of Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C. 

As we reported in March, Ross told us that a reader in England complained to the journal for her suggestion in the paper: 

Continue reading Paper on ‘energy medicine’ retracted after reader complaints

When researchers in Italy published a paper last November claiming to have found evidence of SARS-CoV-2 in that country as early as September 2019 —  four months before the first official case of Covid-19 — the World Health Organization took immediate notice. 

According to Reuters, the WHO asked the group — with ties to Italy’s National Cancer Institute (INT) — for more information and a chance

“to discuss and arrange for further analyses of available samples and verification of the neutralization results”.

As WebMD reported then: 

If the initial history of the pandemic shifts, public health officials may need to consider new screening tools to test people who don’t have COVID-19 symptoms. Better screening could contain future waves of the pandemic and asymptomatic spread, the authors wrote.

Now, Tumori Journal, which published the study, has expressed concern about the findings. More precisely, the journal says it has doubts about the peer review process that vetted the paper. 

Continue reading Paper claiming presence of SARS-CoV-2 in Italy in 2019 earns expression of concern

A journal has issued a dozen expressions of concern over articles that a group of data sleuths had flagged last year on PubPeer as showing signs of having been cranked out by a paper mill. 

The 12 articles were published between 2017 and 2019 in the International Journal of Immunopathology and Pharmacology and were written by authors in China. They carry the same notice: 

Continue reading Journal flags a dozen papers as likely paper mill products a year after sleuths identified them

An integrative health journal has issued an expression of concern for an article it published two years ago last month about the “human biofield” and related topics after receiving complaints that the piece lacked scientific “validity.” 

The article, “Energy Medicine: Current Status and Future Perspectives,” appeared in Global Advances in Health and Medicine, a SAGE title. The author was Christina Ross, of the Wake Forest Center for Integrative Medicine, in Winston-Salem, N.C. Which happens to be where the two top editors of the journal are based.

Ross also is the author of Etiology: How to Detect Disease in Your Energy Field Before It Manifests in Your Body, which is available on Amazon and elsewhere. 

According to the abstract of the article: 

Continue reading “I absolutely stand by the validity of the science” says author of energy field paper now flagged by journal

Don’t tell the aquatic beetles in the family Grouvellinus Champion 1923, but their number just got a little smaller. Officially speaking, that is. Unofficially, keep that place setting at the holiday table. Well, don’t, if you’re under travel restrictions for COVID-19. You get the picture.

A journal has retracted a 2019 paper describing the discovery of a new member of the family, part of a “citizen science” (or “taxon expedition”) effort to collect samples of the insects in the remote Maliau Basin of Borneo, over a bureaucratic dispute. 

Recent forays into the region have turned up several new species of water beetle, including the Grouvellinus leonardodicaprioi, which looks, well, not much like its namesake (yes, that Leonardo DiCaprio). 

According to the notice: 

Continue reading Unmeet the beetles: “A very disappointing story” as authors yank paper on new insect species

An author tells us he is taking legal action against a journal and its publisher after the editor retracted one of his papers and flagged two others.

The Health Informatics Journal has issued expressions of concern for two articles on autism and retracted one on obesity in children.  According to the journal, the papers — led by Fadi Thabtah, of the Manukau Institute of Technology in Auckland, New Zealand — were marred by compromised peer review. 

But that’s not all. Apparently, well, things change. 

Here’s what the EoCs have to say: 

Continue reading Author initiates “a legal process” against a journal and its publisher after a retraction, expressions of concern

Evidently meth is a gateway drug … for publishing misconduct. 

Researchers in China have lost a 2019 paper on how LSD can damage eyesight because they’d lifted much of the paper from an article that had appeared the year before in a different journal — about methamphetamine. 

The retracted article, “Long-term systemic treatment with lysergic acid diethylamide causes retinal damage in CD1 mice,” appeared in Human & Experimental Toxicology. According to the article: 

Continue reading Drug researchers trip up, lifting meth paper to write one on LSD