Journals have flagged two papers by prominent social psychologist Jens Förster — whose work has been subject to much scrutiny — over concerns regarding the validity of the data. Förster already has three retractions, following an investigation by his former employer, the University of Amsterdam (UvA) in the Netherlands. In 2014, we reported on the first retraction for … Continue reading Journals flag two papers by psychologist Jens Förster
Authors of systematic review articles sometimes overlook misconduct and conflicts of interest present in the research they are analyzing, according to a recent study published in BMJ Open. During the study, researchers reviewed 118 systematic reviews published in 2013 in four high-profile medical journals — Annals of Internal Medicine, the British Medical Journal, The Journal of the American … Continue reading Should systematic reviewers report suspected misconduct?
Sometimes, a junior member of the team sees things an editor-in-chief misses. Regular readers know that we’re always delighted when we get a chance to commend researchers and journals for doing the right thing. Here’s an example that sets the standard. Anesthesia & Analgesia (A&A) is retracting a 2015 paper which purportedly found important differences in patient outcomes … Continue reading The standard in transparency? Editor praises author honesty that led to retraction in anesthesia journal
There’s a new paper about retractions, and it’s chock-full of the kind of data that we love to geek out on. Enjoy. The new paper, “A Multi-dimensional Investigation of the Effects of Publication Retraction on Scholarly Impact,” appears on the preprint server arXiv — meaning it has yet to be peer-reviewed — and is co-authored … Continue reading Ready to geek out on retraction data? Read this new preprint
This week at Retraction Watch featured nine more fake peer review retractions, this time from Elsevier, and an update to the retraction count for one-time record holder Joachim Boldt. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
In 2005, the U.S. Office of Research Integrity announced that obesity researcher Eric Poehlman had committed misconduct in 10 published papers. You might think that all of those ten articles would have been retracted a decade later. You’d be wrong. Only six of them have. Here’s what Elizabeth Wager (a member of the board of directors of The … Continue reading How long does it take to retract a paper? A look at the Eric Poehlman record
The week at Retraction Watch featured a primer on research misconduct proceedings, and some developments in the case of Joachim Boldt, who is now second on our leaderboard. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
Ever since we broke the news about the issues with the now-retracted Science paper about changing people’s minds on gay marriage, we’ve been the subject of a lot of press coverage, which has in turn led a number of people to ask us: Who has the most retractions? Well, we’ve tried to answer that in … Continue reading Who has the most retractions? Introducing the Retraction Watch leaderboard
Who has the most retractions? Here’s our unofficial list (see notes on methodology), which we’ll update as more information comes to light: Joachim Boldt (220) See also: Editors-in-chief statement, our coverage Yoshitaka Fujii (172) See also: Final report of investigating committee, our reporting, additional coverage Hironobu Ueshima (124) See also: our coverage Yoshihiro Sato (122) … Continue reading The Retraction Watch Leaderboard
Jens Förster, a social scientist accused of research misconduct, has turned down a highly coveted — and well-endowed — professorship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Foster explained his decision to decline the 5 million Euro award in a post on his personal website: