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: An exclusive about a case of misconduct at the University … Continue reading Weekend reads: Steak-umm in the scientific literature; hushed-up COVID-19 data; major award cancelled for 2020
A group of researchers in Japan who study oral stem cells has lost at least nine papers for fabricated data. We reported on this group, from Aichi Gakuin University in Nagoya, last year after they lost two papers in PLOS ONE for image manipulation. The new retraction notice appears in the Journal of Oral Biosciences, … Continue reading “No original data”: Stem cell researchers in Japan up to nine retractions
A homeopathy journal that Elsevier dropped in the wake of concerns about excessive self-citation appears to have carved out a new niche for itself: self-pity. In 2016, Homeopathy lost its slot on Thomson Reuters’s (now Clarivate’s) influential journal rankings list after an analysis found that more than 70% of citations in the papers it published … Continue reading Did a journal retract your paper on homeopathy? Meet the journal that will publish your complaint
Last month, PLOS ONE published a paper reporting on a trial to improve the uptake of the measles vaccine in Nigeria. The researchers were affiliated with IDinsight, a San Francisco-based “global advisory, data analytics, and research organization that helps development leaders maximize their social impact.” San Francisco is about 7,800 miles from Lagos, and the … Continue reading “Consistently unsurprised”: Nigerian vaccine study with no Nigerian authors retracted
On Sept. 17, 2019, virologist David Sanders — who recently won a lawsuit brought against him for efforts as a scientific sleuth — wrote a letter to the Journal of Cellular Physiology about a 2004 paper whose images raised his eyebrows. The response a day later from an editorial assistant was a hint of what … Continue reading A journal publishes a critical letter — then says it was a mistake
The associate vice president for research at Georgia State University and founding director of the university’s Center for Molecular and Translational Medicine has had his tenth paper retracted. Like the nine previous retractions for Ming-Hui Zou, the work underlying the newly retracted paper in PLOS ONE was performed while Zou was at Oklahoma State University. … Continue reading Associate VP for research at Georgia State is up to 10 retractions
A former veterinary scientist at the University of Maryland has been found guilty of misconduct, including fabrication of data, by the U.S. Office of Research Integrity (ORI). According to ORI:
We’ve been tracking retractions of papers about COVID-19 as part of our database. Here’s a running list, which will be updated as needed. (For some context on these figures, see this post, our letter in Accountability in Research and the last section of this Nature news article. Also see a note about the terminology regarding … Continue reading Retracted coronavirus (COVID-19) papers
How long should a retraction take? As Retraction Watch readers may recall, that’s a question we ask often. In 2018, for example, we wrote a post noting that nearly two years after the University of Maryland, Baltimore, had requested retractions, the journals had done nothing. Some of the papers have since been retracted. We have … Continue reading A year after a university asked two Elsevier journals to retract papers, they haven’t
Journals have retracted 30 papers, and added expressions of concern to 13 more, because the research likely involved organs from executed prisoners in China. The issue surfaced as early as 2016, and two of the retractions occurred in 2017, but all of the other retractions, and all of the expressions of concern, happened after a … Continue reading Journals have retracted or flagged more than 40 papers from China that appear to have used organ transplants from executed prisoners