Major indexing service reverses decision to suppress two journals from closely followed metric

Following pushback from members of the taxonomy community, Clarivate Analytics, the company behind the Impact Factor, has reversed its decision to suppress two journals from receiving those scores this year.

As we reported in late June, Clarivate suppressed 33 journals from its Journal Citation Reports, which meant denying them an Impact Factor, for high levels of self-citation that boosted their scores and ranking. Many universities — controversially — rely on Impact Factor to judge the work of their researchers, so the move could have a dramatic effect on journals and the authors whose work appears in them.

As we reported earlier this month, at least three journals have appealed the move: Zootaxa, the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology, and Body Image. Today, Clarivate announced it was reversing its decision on the two taxonomy journals, Zootaxa and the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology.

In a statement, Clarivate said:

Continue reading Major indexing service reverses decision to suppress two journals from closely followed metric

‘Some papers can slip through the net,’ says journal that published 5G-COVID-19 paper

We have heard back this morning from the publisher of a journal that yanked a paper that linked 5G cellphone technology and the novel coronavirus last week — a paper that scientific sleuth Elisabeth Bik mused was the “worst paper of 2020.”

The response to our request for comment from editor in chief Pio Conti reads a bit like a Mad Libs of excuses we hear from publishers when something goes wrong. Read carefully for:

Continue reading ‘Some papers can slip through the net,’ says journal that published 5G-COVID-19 paper

High-profile sleep researcher loses paper for duplication

Matthew Walker

A prominent sleep researcher whose work has come under intense scrutiny has lost a paper for duplication, aka self-plagiarism.

Matthew Walker, of UC Berkeley, is the author of Why We Sleep, a bestselling treatise on the many woes of fatigue. Instantly popular, it was touted everywhere, from Bill Gates to The New York Times, which enthused: 

Continue reading High-profile sleep researcher loses paper for duplication

Hundreds petition to retract paper they call “unscholarly, overtly racist” and full of “racially violent narratives”

Lawrence Mead

Hundreds of academics, anti-poverty advocates and others have signed petitions demanding the journal Society retract a new commentary which argues, in essence, that poor Black and Hispanic people in the United States are poor because they haven’t figured out how to be more white. 

One petition, to the editor of the journal, Jonathan Imber, had garnered more than 550 signatories by the time of this writing. Another, to the author of the paper, the editorial board of the journal, and the CEO of Springer Nature, which publishes the journal, was at 400 and counting.

The essay, by Lawrence Mead, a public policy researcher at New York University, argues that racism and a lack of good jobs do not explain why America, the world’s richest country, continues to have a problem with poverty. “More plausible,” Mead states, are differences in “culture”: 

Continue reading Hundreds petition to retract paper they call “unscholarly, overtly racist” and full of “racially violent narratives”

Blaming “overflow of manuscripts” and “obviously biased” reviewers, journal will retract homeopathy-COVID-19 paper

A public health journal will be retracting a paper that argued for the adoption of homeopathy in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, according to the editor in chief.

We reported on Saturday that the Journal of Public Health: From Theory to Practice, a Springer Nature title also known by its German name, Zeitschrift für Gesundheitswissenschaften, had published “Homeopathy combat against coronavirus disease (Covid-19)” on June 5.

At the time, we had not yet heard from Joachim Kugler, the journal’s editor, about how this might have happened. Today, Kugler told Retraction Watch:

Continue reading Blaming “overflow of manuscripts” and “obviously biased” reviewers, journal will retract homeopathy-COVID-19 paper

“[A] painful step”: Authors retract paper on fatal poultry virus

via Wikimedia

The authors of a 2019 paper on a lethal type of poultry virus in Asia have retracted the article because of problems with the data collection. But the researchers stand by their findings, which, they say, suggest the pathogen could be harmful to humans.  

The paper, titled “Novel orthobunyavirus causing severe kidney disease in broiler chickens, Malaysia, 2014-2017,” appeared in Emerging Infectious Diseases, a publication of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

The authors were affiliated with Ceva-Phylaxia Veterinary Biologicals Co. Ltd., and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, both in Budapest. The lead author was Vilmos Palya, a prominent veterinary scientist. 

According to the abstract of the article:

Continue reading “[A] painful step”: Authors retract paper on fatal poultry virus

Paper blaming COVID-19 on 5G technology withdrawn

via Pixabay

A paper which argued that 5G cellphone technology could lead to infection with the novel coronavirus has been retracted, but not before scientific sleuth Elisabeth Bik wondered whether it was the “worst paper of 2020.”

The article, “5G Technology and induction of coronavirus in skin cells,” came from a group from Italy, the United States and Russia, and appeared in the Journal of Biological Regulators and Homeostatic Agents. The journal is published by Biolife, which asserts that it’s peer reviewed but has not responded to a request for comment. [Please see an update on this post.]

The abstract is now marked “WITHDRAWN” on PubMed and the paper has disappeared from the journal’s website. The abstract has been preserved here. According to the authors: 

Continue reading Paper blaming COVID-19 on 5G technology withdrawn

Paper urging use of homeopathy for COVID-19 appears in peer-reviewed public health journal

A peer-reviewed journal has published a paper that urges the adoption of homeopathy in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

[Please see an update on this post.]

The Journal of Public Health: From Theory to Practice — published by Springer Nature and also known by its German name, Zeitschrift für Gesundheitswissenschaften — published “Homeopathy combat against coronavirus disease (Covid-19)” on June 5. It is indexed in PubMed Central, although not on Medline.

Here’s the abstract:

Continue reading Paper urging use of homeopathy for COVID-19 appears in peer-reviewed public health journal

Weekend reads: Image duplication software debuts; papers that plagiarize Wikipedia; ‘Time to Get Serious About Research Fraud’

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:

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 25.

Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

Continue reading Weekend reads: Image duplication software debuts; papers that plagiarize Wikipedia; ‘Time to Get Serious About Research Fraud’

Journal to retract paper that spawned #medbikini

From the Journal of Vascular Surgery paper

The Journal of Vascular Surgery says it will retract a paper about surgeons’ social media posts that said health care professionals who posted pictures of themselves in bikinis were engaging in “potentially unprofessional” behavior — and led to a firestorm on Twitter yesterday.

As Medscape reported yesterday before the retraction:

Medical professionals are tweeting pictures of themselves in swimsuits with the hashtag #MedBikini, accompanied by sharp rebukes of a study that labeled such images on social media as “potentially unprofessional.” 

Continue reading Journal to retract paper that spawned #medbikini