Following criticism from scientists around the world, a virology journal has retracted a paper describing the first test in humans of an Iran-made vaccine against COVID-19. Iran licensed the home-grown Noora vaccine for emergency use in 2022 and has reportedly administered millions of doses to its citizens. The country’s health authorities say the shot is … Continue reading Iran COVID-vaccine paper with ‘serious flaws’ retracted
A group of 10 members of the editorial board of BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth have resigned to protest the journal’s failure to respond to allegations of data fabrication. Last week, in an email obtained by Retraction Watch, the editors wrote to Tovah Aronin, the managing editor of the journal, regarding “concerns about the publication of … Continue reading Editorial board members resign from obstetrics journal to protest handling of allegations
A prolific Saudi pharmacy professor published over 200 papers in the last four years, but in recent months the quality of these papers has come into question. Nabil Alhakamy, a dean of research and higher education at King AbdulAziz University’s Faculty of Pharmacy, has had more than 20 articles retracted — the most recent of … Continue reading Saudi university dean has 20 retractions in two years
One of the most highly cited authors in engineering has continued publishing after his death more than a year ago. Jiří Jaromír Klemeš, a researcher at the Brno University of Technology in the Czech Republic and a top editor at an Elsevier journal that has come under fire for author self-citation, is listed as a … Continue reading Highly cited scientist published dozens of papers after his death
Nearly three years after a university investigation committee recommended retracting several papers by a cancer researcher found guilty of research misconduct, the journal Cancer Research has pulled three of the offending articles. The journal also retracted a fourth paper by the researcher, Samson Jacob, a former emeritus professor at The Ohio State University, which had … Continue reading Journal takes 3 years to pull papers by researcher who committed misconduct
Last spring, the Journal of Education, Society and Behavioural Science published a provocative paper stating that left-handed mothers in Singapore treat their LGBTQ+ children better than do right-handed moms. Except the paper, “Left-Handed Mothers and LGBTQ+ Child Acceptance in Singapore: Exploring the Link through Early Life Rejection,” was fake, a sting, designed to cast shade … Continue reading The Singapore Sting: Why an activist published a fake paper on ‘LGBTQ+ child acceptance’
Would you consider a donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? The week at Retraction Watch featured: Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to over 375. There are more than 46,000 retractions in The Retraction Watch Database — which is now part of Crossref. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains well over 200 titles. And … Continue reading Weekend reads: The future of a federal US watchdog; a publisher plans massive layoffs; the plagiarism arms race
Would you consider a donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? The week at Retraction Watch featured: Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to over 375. There are more than 45,000 retractions in The Retraction Watch Database — which is now part of Crossref. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains well over 200 titles. And … Continue reading Weekend reads: Misconduct by national institute director in Japan; ‘a safe space for paper mills’; authors remove COVID-19 vaccine manuscript
What should happen to the millions of dollars publishers rake in from authors whose work is later retracted? Guillaume Cabanac, one of the developers of the Problematic Paper Screener, has repeatedly suggested publishers donate such revenue to charity. And now one is doing just that.
Over the past year, amid announcements of thousands of retractions, journal closures and a major index delisting several titles, executives at the troubled publisher Hindawi have at various times mentioned a “new retraction process” for investigating and pulling papers “at scale.” The publisher has declined to provide details – until now. So far in 2023, … Continue reading Hindawi reveals process for retracting more than 8,000 paper mill articles