It’s official: When journals behave badly, there could be some punishment

Geri Pearson
Chris Graf

Here at Retraction Watch, we constantly receive emails from readers who are frustrated with a particular journal — perhaps it has ignored obvious problems in a published paper, performed only a cursory peer review, or takes months (or years) to take action on a problematic article. Many whistleblowers bring their concerns to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), which provides guidelines for best practices in publishing. But sometimes, those same whistleblowers complain to us that there aren’t adequate punishments for journals that ignore allegations or maintain improper practices — and COPE, though an important standard-bearer for the industry, lacks teeth. Did you know COPE can revoke a journal’s membership if it doesn’t uphold the organization’s ethical standards? This has always been possible, and a recently released COPE statement about its sanctions policy has tried to clarify its position. We spoke with COPE co-chairs Geri Pearson and Chris Graf about this and other recently announced changes.

Retraction Watch: Why did you change “Code of Conduct” to “Core Practices?”

Continue reading It’s official: When journals behave badly, there could be some punishment

Top 10 retractions of 2017

It’s time for the “Best of 2017” lists to start appearing — so why not do one for retractions? We think it’s a good idea, so have partnered with The Scientist for the last few years to compile our most notable notices of the year.

From new records to mass resignations, you can check out our picks for 2017 here. Continue reading Top 10 retractions of 2017

Work with someone who later commits misconduct? You may pay the price

Katrin Hussinger
Maikel Pellens

It makes sense that scientists would adopt a sort of “buyer beware” attitude towards fraud — if researchers choose to collaborate with someone who’s been found guilty of some type of misconduct, their reputation among their peers might take a hit. But what about people who work with someone who is later convicted of misconduct — do they pay a price, as well? Yes, according to a preprint published recently by Katrin Hussinger and Maikel Pellens at the Centre for European Economic Research. We spoke with Hussinger and Pellens about how the “reputational damage” of misconduct can spread to prior collaborators.

RW: It’s not a surprise to think that people who collaborate with a known fraudster might see some impact, but were you surprised to see that people who worked with a “fraudster” in the past were potentially affected?

Continue reading Work with someone who later commits misconduct? You may pay the price

Caught Our Notice: Columbia researcher up to five retractions

Via Wikimedia

Title: Endotoxaemia during left ventricular assist device insertion: relationship between risk factors and outcome

What Caught Our Attention: Robert J. Frumento first caught our notice in 2013, as a coauthor on a paper retracted with a nonspecific reference to author misconduct.  Three years later, Frumento was clearly identified as having fabricated data and a master’s degree, and added three retractions to his name. Now he’s got a fifth retraction, this one citing missing data and a lack of proof that data blinding was performed correctly.   Continue reading Caught Our Notice: Columbia researcher up to five retractions

Weekend reads: Weaponized plagiarism; bias against low-income country research; the uncited papers

The week at Retraction Watch featured commentary on yet another paper claiming a link between autism and vaccines, a welcome useful retraction notice, and a rewrite of a paper that influenced car seat guidelines. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: Continue reading Weekend reads: Weaponized plagiarism; bias against low-income country research; the uncited papers

University requests 4th retraction for psychologist under fire

Jens Förster

The University of Amsterdam has requested another retraction for a prominent social psychologist, after reviewing the dissertations he supervised while at the university.

The university made the announcement this week after reviewing the theses supervised by Jens Förster, whose own work has been subject to considerable scrutiny.

The results of this investigation come more than two years after an initial probe into Förster’s work, which found several of his papers likely contained unreliable data; three of these papers have been retracted and four have received expressions of concern. Förster, who recently left his position at Ruhr-Universität Bochum in Germany to start a private psychology practice, has always maintained that he did not manipulate his data. In 2015, he turned down a professorship, citing the toll the investigation had taken. Continue reading University requests 4th retraction for psychologist under fire

“This is about saving kids’ lives:” Authors update pivotal car seat safety results

A BMJ journal has published an updated analysis of a 2007 paper that shaped current car seat safety recommendations, which reports less conclusive findings about the safest way to install the seat.

The updated analysis follows an expression of concern the journal Injury Prevention added to the paper in June 2017, after the authors and an outside expert could not replicate the results.

The 2007 paper made a big claim: Children ages one to two years old are five times more likely to sustain serious injuries in a crash when restrained in a forward-facing car seat than a rear-facing seat.

Benjamin Hoffman, a professor of pediatrics at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland who was not involved in the 2007 research, told us: Continue reading “This is about saving kids’ lives:” Authors update pivotal car seat safety results

Mathematician protests retraction, alleging “manhunt”

A math journal has retracted a 2015 paper after three outside experts informed the editors that “the paper contains errors which invalidate its main results.”

According to the retraction notice, published in the July 2017 issue of Manuscripta Mathematica, the author Ilya Karzhemanov “has not admitted to the alleged errors and disagrees with the retraction.”

It’s unclear when exactly the paper was retracted, but Karzhemanov, now associate professor at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, posted the now-retracted paper on arXiv in June 2017 and explained his “strong disagreement” with the retraction: Continue reading Mathematician protests retraction, alleging “manhunt”

Caught Our Notice: A retraction that is “useful for investigators”

Via Wikimedia

Title:  Yeast CAF-1 assembles histone (H3-H4) 2 tetramers prior to DNA deposition

What Caught Our Attention: Informative retraction notices can be infrequent, but rarer still are notices that fulfill an oft-ignored function: To be a source of learning for others in the field. Here, the authors offer a nearly 800-word “detailed description of the issues” with “some observations that may be useful for investigators conducting similar studies.” These authors embraced the retraction process, carefully explaining their findings or the lack thereof, for each figure from their now-retracted paper.     Continue reading Caught Our Notice: A retraction that is “useful for investigators”

Doctor with 9 retractions loses lawsuit over work as expert witness

Cory Toth

A Canadian doctor with nine retractions due to misconduct has lost a court case seeking payment for an expert medical exam he performed in August 2014. The exam took place several months after his university found he had allowed a breach of research integrity in his lab and a month before news of the investigation and his departure from the school made national news in Canada.

On Dec. 5, Cory Toth, a former professor at the University of Calgary (U of C), appeared in an Edmonton, Alberta courtroom as the plaintiff in a lawsuit filed in Provincial Civil Court. The story was first reported by the Edmonton Journal.

Court documents, which we’ve made available here, show that in April 2016 Toth sued Western Medical Assessments (WMA) — the company that hired him to perform the exam, which was used in another case — and Michele Reeves — the lawyer who hired WMA. Toth alleged that he never received payment for his work and sought Can$2,000 (US$1,552) plus interest. In his claim, he said that despite the U of C finding: Continue reading Doctor with 9 retractions loses lawsuit over work as expert witness