Category: weekend reads

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:

• WHO COVID-19 library contains hundreds of papers from hijacked journals
• Will the real hottest month on record please stand up?
• Biotech co-founder faked data in NIH-funded research, says federal watchdog
• The decade-long saga capped by a $215,000 settlement with the US government
• Authors crop estimate that was off by a factor of 60 — or $3 trillion
• Meet the alleged brain surgeon who squats on domains, punks journals and listed Wolf Blitzer as a co-author

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 149.

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

Continue reading Weekend reads: Fraud in a study of dishonesty; scrutiny of an open access publisher; HHMI prof fired for sexual harassment

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:

• Researcher in Japan suspended, demoted for plagiarism
• Critics face legal threats as journal takes more than three years to act
• Ivermectin meta-analysis to be retracted, revised, say authors
• Authors blame a “ghoul” for retraction of paper claiming vaccines lead to health and behavioral issues
• Authors — except one — retract 2014 Nature paper on genetics
• Authors admit they “published the paper without completely studying their work.”
• Attorney asks Retraction Watch to remove post because client has lost out on opportunities
• False claims allegations cost Mass General, former Harvard researcher more than $1 million

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 149.

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

Continue reading Weekend reads: ‘An Anti-Tobacco Hero’s Complicated Legacy’; plagiarism at Snopes; is publishing in predatory journals misconduct?

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:

• Should journals retract when an author is sent to prison for a crime unrelated to their work?
• Researcher who faked co-authors earns two more retractions, publication ban following Retraction Watch coverage
• Neuroscientist’s work earns three expressions of concern
• On our 11th birthday, we’d be grateful for your help.

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 147.

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

Continue reading Weekend reads: The ethics committee member who sold grades for cash; how to spot misconduct in clinical trials; biotech cited allegedly altered data in grant application

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:

• Pro-tip: When claiming to use a dataset, make sure it collects what you say it does
• Vice-chancellor of university in Pakistan loses paper for plagiarizing from a thesis
• Should a researcher who was no longer at an institution when a study began be a co-author?
• Prominent behavioral scientist’s paper earns an expression of concern
• Science Majorana paper earns an expression of concern
• ‘A very unfortunate event’: Paper on COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy retracted

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 147.

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

Continue reading Weekend reads: The unintended consequences of “trust in science”; Biogen, Aduhelm, and JAMA; how to determine author order, part 592

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:

• ‘Tortured phrases’, lost in translation: Sleuths find even more problems at journal that just flagged 400 papers
• Award-winning nursing researcher’s paper retracted for ‘failure to acknowledge the contribution of other researchers and the funding source’
• Two years: That’s how long it took a PLOS journal to flag a paper after a sleuth raised concerns
• Journals retract papers following publication of university investigation by Retraction Watch
• Two Texas studies on COVID-19 retracted because ‘previously approved study protocols appear to violate IRB guidelines around prisoner research’
• When a retraction notice leaves out important details: COVID-19, prisoners, and an IRB

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 147.

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

Continue reading Weekend reads: Former dean sent herself threatening letters; what it costs to sue for defamation; what a highly cited paper is worth

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:

• Elsevier says “integrity and rigor” of peer review for 400 papers fell “beneath the high standards expected”
• ‘In hindsight the mistake was quite stupid’: Authors retract paper on stroke
• Researcher committed misconduct while at NIH, say institutes — but is allowed to publish a revised version of a paper
• Paper from company claiming phototherapy could treat COVID-19 is retracted
• ‘Please don’t be afraid to talk about your errors and to correct them.’
• JAMA journal retracts paper on masks for children

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 144.

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

Continue reading Weekend reads: Ivermectin study retracted; Sci-Hub and citations; animal welfare violations at chinchilla lab supplier

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:

• ‘They seem to mean business’: Cardiology journal flags papers cited hundreds of times
• Authors of widely panned study of masks in children respond to critics
• Researchers forfeit $10,000 award when paper’s findings can’t be replicated
• Critique topples Nature paper on belief in gods
• University terminates affiliation with researcher who had paper on COVID-19 vaccines retracted as mask study comes under scrutiny
• Nature corrects a correction on conflicts of interest in fish farming paper
• Publisher won’t retract most papers by chemist editor-in-chief who left university post under a cloud

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 139.

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

Continue reading Weekend reads: How many scientists commit misconduct?; science ‘moved beyond peer review during the pandemic’; Juul pays for entire journal issue

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 fig leaf that doesn’t quite cover up’: Commission says philosopher engaged in ‘unacknowledged borrowings’ but not plagiarism
• Britney Spears story prompts apology from Nature and author. Update.
• Journal retracts paper claiming two deaths from COVID-19 vaccination for every three prevented cases. Earlier, and earlier still.
• Ten journals denied 2020 Impact Factors because of excessive self-citation or “citation stacking”
• A scientist critic was sued, and won — but did not emerge unscathed. This is his story.
• How well do databases and journals indicate retractions? Hint: Inconsistently.

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 134.

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

Continue reading Weekend reads: Fraud in gaming vs. fraud in science; ‘a scholarly screw-up of biblical proportions’; pregnant male rats

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:

• Pulp fiction: Japanese university revokes two dentistry PhDs in case involving two dozen retractions
• Most of problematic articles flagged in Japanese university’s investigation remain uncorrected or unretracted nearly a year later
• An exercise in frustration: A researcher is impersonated
• ‘We apologize again for the inadvertent mistakes during the assembly of data due to our carelessness’
• Meta: An expression of concern quotes Retraction Watch

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 131.

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

Continue reading Weekend reads: ‘The obesity wars and the education of a researcher’; zombie research; hijacked 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 costly mistake’ prompts retraction of paper on hair loss
• Widely covered paper on ranitidine-cancer link retracted
• Paper by former NIH researcher alleging ‘Ponzi schemes’ by government, pharma retracted
• Elsevier glitch prompts temporary removal of critique of review on race and heart disease
• ‘Galling’: Journal scammed by guest editor impersonator

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 128.

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

Continue reading Weekend reads: Biotech CEO on leave after allegations on PubPeer; a researcher disavows his own paper; plagiarism here, there, and everywhere