A paper that caught flak for its claims that an ancient city in the Middle East was destroyed by an exploding celestial body – and the authors’ suggestion that the event could have inspired the Biblical account of Sodom and Gomorrah – now has an editor’s note acknowledging the journal is looking into concerns about … Continue reading Journal investigating Sodom comet paper for data problems
The publisher Frontiers has published an expression of concern for an article that proposed “ivermectin protects against COVID-19” via effects on the microbiome. The article, “Microbiome-Based Hypothesis on Ivermectin’s Mechanism in COVID-19: Ivermectin Feeds Bifidobacteria to Boost Immunity,” was published in July 2022 in Frontiers in Microbiology. The sole author, Sabine Hazan, is affiliated with … Continue reading Publisher investigating “serious concerns” about article on ivermectin, COVID, and the microbiome
A microbiology research group at the University of Hong Kong lost five papers for image duplication in late October, weeks after other scientists published a critique in Retraction Watch of one of the group’s COVID-19 articles. The paper on COVID-19 was published in Cell in 2021 and was led by Patrick Chiu Yat Woo and … Continue reading Researchers lost five papers soon after scientists critiqued another of their papers in Retraction Watch
The publisher PLOS is marking nearly 50 articles by Didier Raoult, the French scientist who became controversial for promoting hydroxychloroquine for treating COVID-19, with expressions of concern while it investigates potential research ethics violations in the work. PLOS has been looking into more than 100 articles by Raoult, but determined that the issues in 49 … Continue reading PLOS flags nearly 50 papers by controversial French COVID researcher for ethics concerns
Mere days after tweets went viral pointing out that the purported error bars in one figure of a paper were really just the capital letter T, the publisher has marked it with an expression of concern. [12/22/22: The paper has now been retracted; see an update on this post.] And that’s not all that’s strange about … Continue reading A paper used capital T’s instead of error bars. But wait, there’s more!
Nick Wise had always been “slightly interested” in research integrity and fraud, just from working in science. Then, last July, from following image sleuth Elisabeth Bik on Twitter, he learned about the work of Guillaume Cabanac, Cyril Labbé, and Alexander Magazinov identifying “tortured phrases” in published papers. Such phrases – such as “bosom peril,” meaning … Continue reading Meet a sleuth whose work has resulted in more than 850 retractions
Would you consider a donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance. The week at Retraction Watch featured: Paper co-authored by Australian journalist Maryanne Demasi to be marked with expression of concern Catch and kill: What it’s like to try to get a NEJM paper corrected Paper co-authored by sleuth Elisabeth Bik marked … Continue reading Weekend reads: A journal ends accept/reject in peer review; more of a Nobelist’s work comes under scrutiny; CNRS director says what he thinks of sleuths
Another article co-authored by Australian journalist Maryanne Demasi will be marked with an expression of concern for image duplication, Retraction Watch has learned. Demasi’s reporting has cast doubt on statins and raised the possibility of a link between wi-fi and brain tumors – controversial claims she and co-authors have previously told us they believe made … Continue reading Paper co-authored by Australian journalist Maryanne Demasi to be marked with expression of concern
Last month, the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) published a letter to the editor and a response reflecting a quite modest correction. Essentially, the three letters “miR” will be removed from throughout a manuscript as the data, to date, do not support there being a human novel microRNA blood-based biomarker for myocarditis, as the … Continue reading Catch and kill: What it’s like to try to get a NEJM paper corrected
A kidney researcher and former dean of a medical school has now had six papers retracted and one marked with an expression of concern in a little more than a year. The latest retraction for Joseph I. Shapiro, of a 2015 paper in Science Advances, comes two years after PubPeer commenters began posting about potentially … Continue reading Former medical school dean earns sixth retraction