The journal Cureus has issued expressions of concern for a whopping 55 papers whose authorship has come into question. The articles, including a couple like this one on COVID-19, were apparently submitted as part of an effort by Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, in Saudi Arabia, to pad the publishing resumes of its medical students … Continue reading Journal issues 55 expressions of concern at once
Today, the journal Cureus — which is no stranger to Retraction Watch — unveiled what they are calling a “Wall of Shame,” which “highlights authors and reviewers who have committed egregious ethical violations as well as the institutions that enabled them.”
Cureus has retracted 15 papers, including three on Covid-19, after concluding that the articles were produced in a scheme by a researcher in Pakistan who charged his co-authors to join the manuscripts, lied about the ethics approval for the studies and may have fabricated data. The journal says Rahil Barkat, who already had lost a … Continue reading Firing, publishing ban, 15 retractions for author who ‘defrauded’ co-authors in pay-to-publish scheme
A case of author’s remorse immediately after publication of her paper has the editor of the journal calling “bullshit” on the decision to retract the work. The paper, “Stopping the Revolving Door: Reducing 30-Day Psychiatric Readmissions With Post-discharge Telephone Calls,” was written by a trio of authors from AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center, in southern New … Continue reading ‘Amateur bullshit’ is the price to pay for democratizing scholarly publishing, says editor
Stolen data, “gross” misconduct, a strange game of scientific telephone, and accusations of intimidation – Santa came late to Retraction Watch but he delivered the goods in style. Last May, the journal Cureus published a paper titled “Idiopathic CD4+ Lymphocytopenia Due to Homozygous Loss of the CD4 Start Codon.” The paper caught the notice of Andrea … Continue reading ‘A clusterf**K’: Authors plagiarize material from NIH and elsewhere, make legal threats — then see their paper retracted
The authors of a 2020 case study of COVID-19 have retracted the work because they were “unsatisfied with the quality” of the work. Nor, judging from the retraction notice, should they — or the journal that published the report — be. The article was titled “Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Infection Mimicking as … Continue reading Authors of a case report on COVID-19 in a prisoner say they ‘are unsatisfied with the quality of [their] work’
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: Pulp fiction: Japanese university revokes two dentistry PhDs in case … Continue reading Weekend reads: ‘The obesity wars and the education of a researcher’; zombie research; hijacked journals
Cureus has retracted a pair of case studies after the authors revealed that the informed consent they’d received from the patients had been revoked. The fate of articles — both by authors in the United Kingdom — highlight the precariousness of papers that rely on consent from patients or, in one instance, their proxies. One … Continue reading Two retractions spotlight the ethical challenges of consent for case reports
The pantheon of husband-wife teams in science includes Marie and Pierre Curie, Gerty and Carl Cori, even Ugur Sahin and Özlem Türeci, the founders of BioNTech, which collaborated with Pfizer on a Covid-19 vaccine. To that list we hesitatingly add Ahmed Elkhouly and his spouse. Elkhouly, a medical resident at St. Francis Medical Center, in … Continue reading Meet the medical resident who had his wife peer review five of his papers
Welcome to the first Weekend Reads of 2021. 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: Medical writer … Continue reading Weekend reads: The backstory of a Nature retraction; an author salutes her favorite review of 2020; vaping-COVID-19 link questioned