Weekend reads: JAMA editor resigns after review of podcast on racism and medicine; ‘Please Commit More Blatant Academic Fraud’; machine learning’s health credibility crisis

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: Two transcendental meditation papers retracted for failures to report primary … Continue reading Weekend reads: JAMA editor resigns after review of podcast on racism and medicine; ‘Please Commit More Blatant Academic Fraud’; machine learning’s health credibility crisis

The peer reviewers and editor wanted to publish my paper. The legal team rejected it.

Move over, Reviewer 2: The legal reviewer wants your job.  Last month, I was relieved when the journal Research Ethics published my article, “The Use of Confidentiality and Anonymity Protections as a Cover for Fraudulent Fieldwork Data.” One unexpected hurdle had almost thwarted publication. The problem wasn’t with the proverbial hard-to-please peer reviewer called Reviewer … Continue reading The peer reviewers and editor wanted to publish my paper. The legal team rejected it.

Two meditation papers retracted for failures to report primary outcomes

A pair of psychology journals have retracted two related papers on the health benefits of a popular form of meditation after a reader pointed out that the authors failed to report the primary outcome of the study underpinning the articles. The now-retracted articles describe the putatively salubrious effects of sahaj samadhi meditation, a form of … Continue reading Two meditation papers retracted for failures to report primary outcomes

How hijacked journals keep fooling one of the world’s leading databases

It keeps happening.  There was the case of Talent Development and Excellence, which cloned an existing journal and managed to index hundreds of articles in Scopus, one of the world’s leading databases for scholarly literature. The Transylvanian Review did the same thing, and so did Test Engineering and Management. These journals — which can make … Continue reading How hijacked journals keep fooling one of the world’s leading databases

Congratulations! Your already-published article has just been rejected

All rejection is hard to take. But, as one psychology researcher has found out, “having a paper rejected half a year after publication is something new …” We’ll explain. In January 2021, Eiko Fried, of the Department of Clinical Psychology at Leiden University, in The Netherlands, published an article in Psychological Inquiry titled “Lack of … Continue reading Congratulations! Your already-published article has just been rejected

‘Preprints are works in progress’: The tale of a disappearing COVID-19 paper

When a Twitter user tipped us off last week to the mysterious disappearance of a preprint of a paper on a potential new therapy to treat Covid-19, we were curious. Was it a hidden retraction, or something else?  The article, titled “Effectiveness of ZYESAMI™ (Aviptadil) in Accelerating Recovery and Shortening Hospitalization in Critically-Ill Patients with … Continue reading ‘Preprints are works in progress’: The tale of a disappearing COVID-19 paper

Weekend reads: Government interference in research; ‘mega’ reviewers; tobacco funding draws scrutiny

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: Drug company withdraws court motion requesting retraction of papers critical … Continue reading Weekend reads: Government interference in research; ‘mega’ reviewers; tobacco funding draws scrutiny

Rejection overruled, retraction ensues when annoyed reviewer does deep dive into data

As a prominent criminologist, Kim Rossmo often gets asked to review manuscripts. So it was that he found himself reviewing a meta-analysis by a pair of Dutch researchers — Wim Bernasco and Remco van Dijke, of the Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement, in Amsterdam — looking at a phenomenon called … Continue reading Rejection overruled, retraction ensues when annoyed reviewer does deep dive into data

Weekend reads: COVID-19 issue pulled; an author announces a retraction; FDA sanctions a company for not publishing results

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: Editor declines to correct paper with duplicated image after earlier … Continue reading Weekend reads: COVID-19 issue pulled; an author announces a retraction; FDA sanctions a company for not publishing results

Mask study was “misleading” and misquotes citations, says Elsevier

Three days after we reported that Elsevier would be retracting a paper about COVID-19 and masks whose author claimed a false affiliation with Stanford, the publisher tells us that the “paper is misleading,” “misquotes and selectively cites published papers,” and that the data in one table is “unverified.” As we noted earlier this week: The … Continue reading Mask study was “misleading” and misquotes citations, says Elsevier