Retraction Watch

The circle of life, publish or perish edition: Two journals retract more than 40 papers

Talk about the publish-or-perish version of the circle of life.

A Springer Nature journal has retracted 33 articles — 29 from one special issue, and four from another — for a laundry list of publishing sins, from fake peer review to plagiarism to stealing unpublished manuscripts.

And an Elsevier journal has retracted ten papers recently for duplication — of ten of the Springer Nature journal’s papers.

A typical notice from the Springer Nature journal, Multimedia Tools and Applications (MTAP):

Doing the right thing: Researchers retract clinician burnout study after realizing their error

A journal is retracting and replacing a 2016 study which found that nearly two-thirds of clinicians who focus on end-of-life care experienced burnout, after the authors found an error that had dramatically inflated the findings.

The article, “Prevalence and predictors of burnout among hospice and palliative care clinicians in the U.S.,” appeared in the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, and has been cited 72 times, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science. The authors, led by Arif Kamal, of Duke University, included researchers at Mayo Clinic, the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, the University of Pittsburgh and other institutions.

But while working on a subsequent paper, the authors realized that something was amiss with their first article. The two studies revealed strikingly different rates of burnout in the surveys the researchers had conducted, 62% vs. 39%, an unusual finding given that a relatively short time had elapsed between the surveys, they said. A closer look revealed a critical error.

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A study finding no evidence of racial bias in police shootings earns a correction that critics call an “opaque half measure”

A group of researchers who published a controversial study that found no evidence of racial bias in deadly police shootings have corrected their paper but are standing by their findings — to the displeasure of some scholars who say the article is too flawed to stand.

The 2019 study, “Officer characteristics and racial disparities in fatal officer-involved shootings,” was written by David Johnson, of the University of Maryland, and several co-authors from Michigan State University. According to the abstract:

Weekend reads: Retracted COVID-19 papers; a coronavirus study kept under wraps; Harvard and Jeffrey Epstein

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.

Sending thoughts to our readers and wishing them the best in this uncertain time.

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

the correction of an influential paper on COVID-19 because it cited a withdrawn preprint;
the retraction of a paper on gender dysphoria following a petition signed by 900 critics
20 expressions of concern for papers by a doctor who ran afoul of the FDA;
the return of the peer review bandits.

How many papers about COVID-19 have been retracted? We’ve been keeping track, as part of our database. Here’s our frequently updated list.

Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

Litigious OSU cancer researcher earns his 10th retraction

Carlo Croce, the prolific cancer researcher at The Ohio State University (OSU) with a penchant for hiring — and then losing — lawyers to sue those who displease him, has lost an 10th paper to retraction.

Croce, who in addition to the 10 retractions also has three expressions of concern and 18 corrections for his work, unsuccessfully sued the New York Times for defamation after the newspaper reported on misconduct allegations against him. He has also sued OSU — also unsuccessfully — to force them to restore him as chair of the Department of Cancer Biology and Genetics.

Apparently, Croce and his co-author thought that a correction to the newly retracted article was necessary because of “improper reuse of text from previous articles.” The journal, however, felt differently.

Journal retracts paper on gender dysphoria after 900 critics petition

A journal has retracted a controversial paper that questioned what it called the “existing dogma” about gender.

The article, “A new theory of gender dysphoria incorporating the distress, social behavioral, and body-ownership networks,” was written by Stephen Gliske, a physicist-turned-neuroscientist at the University of Michigan.

Gliske’s paper, which received a modest amount of media attention, argued for what he calls a “multisense theory” of gender identity. As he told Newsweek last December:

Peer review bandits purloin again, this time in chemistry

A pair of researchers in India have lost a 2017 paper published by the UK’s Royal Society of Chemistry after an inquiry found that they’d stolen the guts of the work from an unpublished manuscript one of them had reviewed for another journal.

The article in question, “Tri-s-triazine (s-heptazine), a novel electron-deficient core for soft self-assembled supramolecular structures,” appeared in Chemical Communications was submitted on August 4, 2017 and published on September 25, 2017, and was written by Irla Kumar and Sandeep Kumar, of the Raman Research Institute in Bangalore.

Sandeep Kumar, who is now retired, was a leading figure in the field of liquid crystals. The Royal Society of Chemistry feted him as one of the “most cited” researchers in Chemical Communications and another of its journals in 2006 and 2007. He also served on the editorial boards of several journals, including Liquid Crystals — a post that is particularly relevant in light of what follows.

According to the retraction notice:

Publisher slaps expressions of concern on 20 papers by nutrition supplement-selling doctor

More than two years after being made aware of undisclosed conflicts of interest by a Minnesota physician who ran afoul of the U.S. FDA for health claims about supplements sold by his company, a publisher has added expressions of concern on 20 of the doctor’s papers.

As we reported in August 2019, on Feb. 23, 2018, Stephen Barrett — a U.S. physician and founder of Quackwatch — sent Dove Press a message about the 20 papers by Marty Hinz:

Authors to correct influential Imperial College COVID-19 report after learning it cited a withdrawn preprint

A March paper by researchers at Imperial College London that, in the words of the Washington Post, “helped upend U.S. and U.K. coronavirus strategies,” cited a preprint that had been withdrawn.

Retraction Watch became aware of the issue after being contacted by a PubPeer commenter who had noted the withdrawal earlier this month. Following questions from Retraction Watch this weekend, the authors said they plan to submit a correction.

In March, the New York Times wrote:

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