Search Results for: medical

Weekend reads: Frustration over unpaid peer review; NIH axes research grants; publishers sue Meta

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up past 500. There are more than 57,000 retractions in The Retraction Watch Database — which is now part of Crossref. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains more than 300 titles. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately … Continue reading Weekend reads: Frustration over unpaid peer review; NIH axes research grants; publishers sue Meta

Guest post: Should Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment be retracted?

Philip G. Zimbardo passed away in October 2024 at age 91. He enjoyed an illustrious career at Stanford University, where he taught for 50 years. He accrued a long list of accolades, but his singular and enduring contribution to scholarship was the Stanford Prison Experiment, a simulation carried out in the university’s psychology department in … Continue reading Guest post: Should Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment be retracted?

Weekend reads: Former NIH director suddenly retires; more on patent mills; journal editors talk damage control

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up past 500. There are more than 57,000 retractions in The Retraction Watch Database — which is now part of Crossref. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains more than 300 titles. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately … Continue reading Weekend reads: Former NIH director suddenly retires; more on patent mills; journal editors talk damage control

Seven years after ‘noncompliance’ finding, whistleblowers push for retractions

Seven years after investigations uncovered “serious noncompliance” in the collection of biological samples at a California VA hospital, the original whistleblowers say several papers related to the work use these problematic samples and should be retracted. But the principal investigator of the work says there’s no reason to question the findings. The VA San Diego … Continue reading Seven years after ‘noncompliance’ finding, whistleblowers push for retractions

Weekend reads:  Same data, opposite conclusions; ‘Death by ax’; ‘plastics in your brain’

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up past 500. There are more than 57,000 retractions in The Retraction Watch Database — which is now part of Crossref. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains more than 300 titles. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately … Continue reading Weekend reads:  Same data, opposite conclusions; ‘Death by ax’; ‘plastics in your brain’

Guest post: If you’re going to critique science, be scientific about it

Editor’s note: This post responds to a Feb. 13 article in The Atlantic, “The Scientific Literature Can’t Save Us Now,” written by Retraction Watch cofounders Adam Marcus and Ivan Oransky. The contentious issue of what — and more importantly who — to believe, when it comes to medical science, is at a critical moment. Watchdog … Continue reading Guest post: If you’re going to critique science, be scientific about it

Weekend reads: ‘The Discipline of Last Resort’; universities with the most retractions; ‘patent mills’

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up past 500. There are more than 55,000 retractions in The Retraction Watch Database — which is now part of Crossref. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains more than 300 titles. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately … Continue reading Weekend reads: ‘The Discipline of Last Resort’; universities with the most retractions; ‘patent mills’

Paper on conversion therapy retracted, authors planning to republish 

A four-year-old paper claiming conversion therapy reduced same-sex thoughts in gay men has been retracted after criticism from other researchers prompted further review of the work. “Efficacy and risk of sexual orientation change efforts: a retrospective analysis of 125 exposed men,” published in F1000Research in March 2021, found conversion therapy (referred to in the paper … Continue reading Paper on conversion therapy retracted, authors planning to republish 

Wiley journal retracts 26 papers for ‘compromised peer review’

A Wiley journal has retracted more than two dozen articles in the last few months for peer review issues.  The articles, which appeared in Environmental Toxicology, have been retracted in batches, the latest on February 16-17, with previous sets in January and November. The retraction notices of all 26 papers read in part:

As a nonsense phrase of shady provenance makes the rounds, Elsevier defends its use

The phrase was so strange it would have stood out even to a non-scientist. Yet “vegetative electron microscopy” had already made it past reviewers and editors at several journals when a Russian chemist and scientific sleuth noticed the odd wording in a now-retracted paper in Springer Nature’s Environmental Science and Pollution Research.  The ludicrous phrase … Continue reading As a nonsense phrase of shady provenance makes the rounds, Elsevier defends its use