The co-authors of a paper that claimed jade amulets might prevent COVID-19 have tried to distance themselves from the work, in a letter to the co-editor of the journal that published it. In fact, the first author, Moses Bility of the University of Pittsburgh, says of his co-authors:
So much for author instructions. Researchers who’d submitted a paper to Social Science & Medicine on smoking in public places briefly lost their article after the journal had some confusion about an embargo they’d requested. The article, “Neighbourhood greenspace and smoking prevalence: Results from a nationally representative survey in England,” has since been republished in … Continue reading Journal drops the ball as it tries to juggle an embargo request and Elsevier’s temporary removal policy
The Open Access Macedonian Journal of Medical Sciences, which retracted five papers recently, including one claiming that there was a black hole at the center of Earth, will no longer be indexed in a heavily used U.S. government database of journals. According to the journal’s index page at PubMed Central (PMC), part of the U.S. … Continue reading Journal that published paper about a black hole at the center of Earth sinks into the void at a leading government database
Journals have flagged more than three dozen articles by a team of authors in Iran for concern over the integrity of their data. The moves have come in the 15 months since data sleuths raised questions about the data in more than 170 papers from the group. Among the most recent moves, a nutrition journal … Continue reading Journals flag concerns in three dozen papers by nutrition researchers
Pro tip to would-be fraudsters: If you’re going to submit new figures to support your claims, make sure they’re not obviously fake. That’s a lesson a group of cancer researchers learned the hard way for their 2016 article in DNA and Cell Biology titled “miR-106a-5p suppresses the proliferation, migration, and invasion of osteosarcoma cells by … Continue reading Researchers tried to correct a figure after questions on PubPeer. Then the real trouble started.
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: Paper suggesting vitamin D might protect against COVID-19 earns an … Continue reading Weekend reads: A peer review murder mystery for Halloween; learning from #medbikini; inside the publishing ring that linked COVID-19 and 5G
PLOS ONE has issued an expression of concern for a paper it published last month suggesting that vitamin D might protect against severe COVID-19. Central to the concerns is that the authors seem to have been too far out over their skis in asserting a link between the vitamin and the response to the infection. … Continue reading Paper suggesting vitamin D might protect against COVID-19 earns an expression of concern
A psychology journal has expressed concern about a 46-year-old paper which described attempts to correct “deviant” gender identity in a 5-year-old boy using physical violence — the latest example of journals purging (or semi-purging) their pages of offensive studies. The 1974 article, “Behavioral treatment of deviant sex‐role behaviors in a male child,” appeared in the … Continue reading Journal flags — but does not retract — decades-old paper on “correcting” gender identity
A medical journal has retracted two papers by a researcher with a penchant for fabricating co-authors. According to the Singapore Medical Journal and earlier news reports, Shunjie Chua published the articles with two fictitious authors: Mark Pitts and Peter Lamark, whom he placed at Duke University and the University of Chicago. The articles, “A simple, … Continue reading Researcher faked the names of Duke and University of Chicago co-authors
In July 2014, Elisabeth Bik notified PLOS ONE that she’d found three papers in the journal by a group of researchers who had clearly manipulated figures in the articles. More than six years later, the journal has finally retracted the publications. The authors were affiliated with the Fourth Military Medical University in Shaanxi, China. The … Continue reading “I do wish that journal editors would not take six years to perform an investigation and to retract.”