Kashif Barkat, who heads the Department of Pharmacy at the University of Lahore in Punjab, Pakistan, has had two of his studies retracted and two more corrected, all for issues related to images in the papers. Several more of his studies are flagged on PubPeer for similar reasons. According to the retraction notice for one … Continue reading Pakistan university’s pharmacy department chair notches two retractions
The week at Retraction Watch featured: Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up past 400. There are more than 50,000 retractions in The Retraction Watch Database — which is now part of Crossref. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains more than 250 titles. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately — … Continue reading Weekend reads: A plethora of misdeeds; big slowdown at several publishers; hydroxychloroquine paper retraction draws scrutiny
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 The week at Retraction Watch featured: Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up past 400. There are more than 50,000 retractions in The Retraction Watch Database — which is now part of Crossref. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains more than 250 titles. And have … Continue reading Weekend reads: Happy birthday, Retraction Watch!; a mysterious conference; extreme publishing; research parasites revisited
Elsevier is investigating the journal Geoscience Frontiers after a PubPeer thread flagged an editorial advisor whose articles in the journal were edited by his frequent co-authors. The editorial advisor, M. Santosh, is a professor at the University of Adelaide in Australia and a “Highly Cited Researcher” with more than 1,500 published articles, according to Clarivate’s … Continue reading Elsevier investigating geology journal after allegations of pal review
A Frontiers journal has taken down the abstract of a “provisionally accepted” article about harms from an herbal supplement after the company that sells the products sued the first author for defamation. The author of the paper, Cyriac Abby Philips, a hepatologist at Rajagiri Hospital in Kerala, India, has over 266,000 followers on his X … Continue reading Supplement maker sues critic for defamation, spurring removal of accepted abstract
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 The week at Retraction Watch featured: Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up past 400. There are more than 49,000 retractions in The Retraction Watch Database — which is now part of Crossref. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains more than 250 titles. And have … Continue reading Weekend reads: ‘The surprising history of abstracts’; is peer review broken?; bee waggle dance data gets the wrong kind of buzz
A journal has retracted a letter to the editor and removed the online version from its website “because legal concerns were raised to the Publisher,” according to the notice. The retracted letter had referred to multiple journals as “predatory.” The retracted letter, “A threat to scientific integrity,” appeared in the British Dental Journal in August … Continue reading Journal retracts letter to the editor about predatory journals for ‘legal concerns’
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 past 400. There are more than 49,000 retractions in The Retraction Watch Database — which is now part of Crossref. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains more than 250 titles. And have … Continue reading Weekend reads: A ‘star botanist’ has a retraction; the ‘bizarro world of law reviews’; AI and fake papers
A panel of scholars in Finland has downgraded 60 journals in their quality rating system, following months of review and feedback from researchers. The Finnish Publication Forum (JUFO) classifies and rates journals and other scholarly publications to “support the quality assessment of academic research,” according to its website. JUFO considers the level of transparency, the … Continue reading Finland group downgrades 60 journals
While presenting a paper in journal club, neurology resident at Baylor College of Medicine, Peter Campbell, noticed a potential problem. Two infants in a 2018 paper were reported to have died, but their data also appeared in a follow-up study published two years later with no mention of them being deceased. “It is unclear how … Continue reading Journal investigating follow-up study that didn’t mention patients had died