Retraction Watch

61 retractions for controversial psychologist Hans Eysenck? That’s a significant underestimate, says his biographer

In a recent Retraction Watch guest post on the “Eysenck affair,” James Heathers notes the extraordinary possibility that as many as 61 Hans Eysenck publications might be retracted. I believe this figure is a significant underestimate.

This reckoning has been a long time coming. The issues surrounding Eysenck’s 1980s/1990s collaboration with Ronald Grossarth-Maticek and their unbelievable results linking personality to health outcomes have been known for decades. Many eminent researchers, including Tony Pelosi and Louis Appleby, had lined up to criticise this research even while it was still ongoing.

In 2010, I published a lengthy biography of Eysenck, Playing with fire, that detailed the context for this collaboration. In the final full chapter, I explained what prompted Eysenck to team up with this outsider figure and laid bare the extent of Eysenck’s deep and longstanding relationship with the tobacco industry. It was backed by extensive archival research and interviews with key players (including two days with Grossarth-Maticek). I had hoped it would provoke a reappraisal and remedial action. But the impact was minimal.

Final reminder: We’re phasing out one of our email alerts. Here’s how to keep up with Retraction Watch.

As some Retraction Watch readers have known, we’ve had off-and-on technological issues with the site. At least in some cases, those problems seem to have been due to DDOS attacks. We’ve been taking steps to ensure the site’s reliability, and we’re taking another one.

Since our inception in 2010, we’ve offered a way to receive an email alert about every new post as it is published. We know that for some readers, such alerts are the preferred way to learn of new posts. However, the various ways to do that all create vulnerabilities on the site, which in turn offer bots ways to compromise us.

As a result, we’re phasing out our email per post subscription, the one that you may have signed up for using the “follow” button that appears on the bottom of your screen. At the end of October, we will no longer offer it.

No ‘possible fraudulent explanation’: Frequent co-author tasked with clearing colleagues of image manipulation

A journal has allowed a group of researchers in Italy to correct a 2016 paper with questionable images after a faculty member in their institution — and a frequent co-author of the group’s — said his investigation found no reason to doubt their integrity.

The article, “Arg tyrosine kinase modulates TGF-β1 production in human renal tubular cells under high-glucose conditions,” appeared in the Journal of Cell Science. Earlier this year, a poster on PubPeer pointed out “problematic similarities” with figures in the article.

The similarities evidently didn’t trouble Fulvio Magni, a professor of biochemistry at Milano-Bicocca who was tasked with investigating the case. Magni, we think we should note, has also been a co-author with members of the research group (see here, here, here and here, for a few examples).

According to the correction:

Former Northwestern psychology prof has paper subjected to an expression of concern

A paper by Ping Dong, a former researcher at Northwestern who left her post less than a year after having a paper retracted from Psychological Science, has been subjected to an expression of concern.

The 2017 paper, in the Journal of Consumer Research, claimed to show that “Witnessing Moral Violations Increases Conformity in Consumption.” It has been cited just twice, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Knowledge.

The expression of concern reads:

Weekend reads: Scientist loses job after 30 retractions; breast cancer researcher committed misconduct; “two crashes” at Duke

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 author irked about “science by tweet” after his paper is flagged;
an author irked by Elsevier’s decision to retract nine of his papers for fake peer review;
a researcher who is no longer in his job following a misconduct finding;
the retraction of a paper questioning the link between HIV and AIDS years after criticism.

Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

‘Misguided and ineffectual’: Publisher offers mea culpa in retraction of paper questioning link between HIV and AIDS

Anyone who lives near or has ever driven past a cattle ranch knows this much: No amount of perfume can mask the smell of bullshit. If you want proof, and you don’t have a car, just ask the editors of Frontiers in Public Health.

In 2014, the journal published a paper by a researcher in Texas, Patricia Goodson, who questioned the causal link between HIV and AIDS. In response to the predictable outcry, the journal blinked, sort of.

Author protests as Elsevier retracts nine papers for fake peer review

An agriculture researcher has lost nine papers from Elsevier journals for “illegitimate reviewer reports.”

The researcher, Christos Damalas, is, well, irked.

The journals included Chemosphere, Crop Protection, Land Use Policy, and Science of the Total Environment, and the papers were all published in 2017 and 2018, with Damalas as corresponding author and co-authors from Iran and Pakistan. Together, the nine papers have been cited about 75 times, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Knowledge.

Here’s a typical notice, this one from Crop Protection:

Hepatitis expert out at Chicago university following misconduct finding

A researcher who is now up to six retractions has left his faculty position at the Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science following a finding of research misconduct, Retraction Watch has learned.

Gulam Waris, who studies hepatitis, has reused images across multiple papers, according to a retraction notice published this week in the Journal of General Virology:

‘Science by tweet’ prompts expression of concern, irking authors

The leader of an international team of genetics researchers is seething after a journal responded to critical tweets about their paper by issuing an expression of concern.

The article, “Exome sequencing in multiple sclerosis families identifies 12 candidate genes and nominates biological pathways for the genesis of disease,” was published in PLOS Genetics in early June 2019 by a group led by Carles Vilariño-Güell, of the Department of Medical Genetics at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

Less than a week after publication, according to Vilariño-Güell, the journal notified him that:

‘Misunderstanding of the academic rules’ leads to retraction of arthritis paper

A group of arthritis researchers in China have lost a 2019 paper which was effectively an English-language reprint of an earlier article in a Chinese journal. Two of the authors blamed a “misunderstanding of the academic rules” on the part of their colleagues for the duplication.

The article, “The clinical significance of serum sCD25 as a sensitive disease activity marker for rheumatoid arthritis,” appeared in the Scandinavian Journal of Rheumatology. But, as the retraction notice explains, the work wasn’t original:

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