Today, we’re excited to announce that our parent organization, The Center For Scientific Integrity (CSI), has partnered with The Center For Open Science (COS) to create that database on the Open Science Framework (OSF).
It’s a natural collaboration, says Retraction Watch co-founder and CSI executive director Ivan Oransky:
Look at the selection criteria for any major funding agency, and you will find it aims to support research that is “ground-breaking,” “innovative,” “high-risk,” and “at the frontiers of knowledge.”
But are these criteria delivering the best science? Think about the “reproducibility crisis,” familiar to many Retraction Watch readers: Evidence is growing that a high proportion of published research findings are not robust. This is bad news for funders; irreproducible research is a waste of money, and actually impedes scientific progress by filling the literature with irreproducible false-positive findings that, once published, never die.
A major source of irreproducibility comes from research that is funded but never reported. As I have noted previously, many researchers have a backlog of unpublished findings. All too often, they sit on a mountain of data that is unpublished simply because it is not the most exciting thing on their desk, and they need to be working on a new project in order to remain competitive. Negative results – e.g. where a promising treatment shows no effect, or an anticipated association between a genotype and phenotype fails to emerge — are likely to end up in the file drawer. By lingering in obscurity, they contribute to publication bias and the consequent distortion of the truth.
In October, the Academy of Medical Sciences (AMS) published a report considering reasons for irreproducibility in biomedical research and ways to overcome them. It was clear that the problem was not down to any one cause, and that a range of solutions needed to be considered — some bottom-up (such as better training of researchers), and some top-down, driven by institutions, publishers and, the focus of this post, funders.
A heart researcher who fabricated trial participants has notched a second JAMA retraction. The retraction comes at the request of her co-authors, after an investigation by her former employer wasn’t able to confirm that this study was valid.
In September, we learned that Anna Ahimastos, who used to work at Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute in Melbourne, Australia, had “fabricated [records] for trial participants that did not exist” in a JAMA trial for a blood pressure drug, according to principal investigator Bronwyn Kingwell. That trial was retracted, along with a sub analysis.
An investigation by the institute found problems or sufficient doubt in several more publications. This second JAMA retraction is number 5 for Ahimastos, of 8 total expected.
The letter, published in 2001, argues that local anesthesia is a “safe, reliable, inexpensive, and practical alternative to the use of epidural, spinal, or general anesthesia” for outpatient knee surgery. But to support his point, he uses one of his papers that has since been retracted for data fabrication.
“The Patient, a 60-years old Caucasian male found unconscious in a trailer park of gypsies…”
So begins a strange — and apparently not copyedited — new case report in the World Journal of Emergency Surgery. The paper concerns a patient — perhaps we should call him Rasputin — who showed up with a bullet in his left lung but no entry wound that would explain its presence.
Naturally, the authors draw the obvious conclusions:
Piero Anversa‘s departure follows the dismissal of his suit last summer. Anversa filed the suit with colleague Annarosa Leri, claiming that an investigation into their work damaged their reputations:
they lost a multimillion-dollar offer to purchase their company, Autologous/Progenital; and both Plaintiffs have had possible employment offers at several institutions postponed.
Anversa’s lawyer, Tracey Miner, confirmed that he was moving:
The Huffington Post has retracted two blog posts by prominent Yale nutritionist David Katz after learning he had posted incredibly favorable reviews of a new novel — and not revealed that he had written the novel himself, under a pseudonym.
There’s no doubt Katz is a prolific writer — in addition to a couple hundred scientific articles and textbook chapters, Katz regularly blogs for the Huffington Post. He’s also the author of a novel, reVision, under the pen name Samhu Iyyam. Last year, Katz wrote a pair of incredibly favorable reviews of reVision on The Huffington Post that implied he had discovered the novel as a reader. The Huffington Post has taken them down, as blogger Peter Heimlich — yes, related to the maneuver — reported earlier this week. According to Heimlich, a 5-star Amazon review of “Iyyam’s” book, written by Katz, has also been removed.
In the reviews, there’s no hint that Katz is the author. In the first column, “Do We Need to Kill Our Heroes?,” published in January, Katz notes he was “delighted to find just such reflections [on that question] in my new favorite book, reVision.” Here’s the retraction note, of sorts, that appears on Huff Po in the column’s place:
As our readers know, one of the goals of our work at Retraction Watch is to create a free, comprehensive database of retractions. That effort is generously funded by The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and The Laura and John Arnold Foundation.
This version of Hurricane Isaac — 
