Weekend reads: When scholars sue; why university rankings reward bad science; AI making its way into publishing

Would you consider a donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? The week at Retraction Watch featured: Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to more than 350. There are now 42,000 retractions in our database — which powers retraction alerts in Edifix, EndNote, LibKey, Papers, and Zotero. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains 200 titles. And have you … Continue reading Weekend reads: When scholars sue; why university rankings reward bad science; AI making its way into publishing

Colombia drug regulator halts clinical research at US-funded facility

Following an inspection earlier this month, Colombia’s FDA has suspended all human research at a facility that until this summer had been receiving U.S. funding to develop a malaria vaccine. The Malaria Vaccine and Development Center, in the city of Cali in western Colombia, is part of the Caucaseco Scientific Research Consortium, which is run … Continue reading Colombia drug regulator halts clinical research at US-funded facility

Exclusive: Researcher has “ceased employment” at university amid investigation and retraction 

A neurology researcher in Australia is no longer employed at his former university in the midst of a research misconduct investigation, Retraction Watch has learned. And the work of a co-author at another institution also is being assessed for possible research misconduct after sleuths alerted the university to comments on PubPeer about potential data issues … Continue reading Exclusive: Researcher has “ceased employment” at university amid investigation and retraction 

Weekend reads: Study claiming masks harm is retracted; papers lead to high treason charges; paying to publish in fake journals

Would you consider a donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? The week at Retraction Watch featured: Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to more than 300. There are now 40,000 retractions in our database — which powers retraction alerts in EndNote, LibKey, Papers, and Zotero. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains 200 titles. And have you … Continue reading Weekend reads: Study claiming masks harm is retracted; papers lead to high treason charges; paying to publish in fake journals

Weekend reads: Men vs. women in fraud; how to improve peer review; homeopathy data manipulation

Would you consider a donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? The week at Retraction Watch featured: Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to more than 300. There are nearly 40,000 retractions in our database — which powers retraction alerts in EndNote, LibKey, Papers, and Zotero. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains 200 titles. And have you … Continue reading Weekend reads: Men vs. women in fraud; how to improve peer review; homeopathy data manipulation

Weekend reads: ‘Is economics self-correcting?’; ’20 years of ‘terror’ in the laboratory’; a look at self-citations

Would you consider a donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? The week at Retraction Watch featured: Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to more than 300. There are more than 39,000 retractions in our database — which powers retraction alerts in EndNote, LibKey, Papers, and Zotero. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions … Continue reading Weekend reads: ‘Is economics self-correcting?’; ’20 years of ‘terror’ in the laboratory’; a look at self-citations

Publisher investigating “serious concerns” about article on ivermectin, COVID, and the microbiome

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

Article that critiqued high-profile abortion study retracted

An article that critiqued a study on what happened after women did not get abortions that they sought has been retracted after observers raised concerns that the peer review process had not been objective.  The article, “The Turnaway Study: A Case of Self-Correction in Science Upended by Political Motivation and Unvetted Findings,” was originally published … Continue reading Article that critiqued high-profile abortion study retracted

Board members decry their own journal’s retraction of paper on predatory publishers

Academics affiliated with a journal that retracted a paper on predatory publishing last year — after one of the publishers mentioned in the analysis complained — have put out a letter critiquing the decision, saying the retraction “lacks justification.”  The authors of the retracted article appealed the decision to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), … Continue reading Board members decry their own journal’s retraction of paper on predatory publishers

‘Just some eccentric guy in Australia’: The story of a non-retraction for plagiarism

After reading a paper published in The Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England last March, Andrew Thomas, an orthopedic surgeon in the UK, noticed that it was very similar to an article published the previous December in another journal.  He wrote a letter to the editor of Annals, notifying the journal of … Continue reading ‘Just some eccentric guy in Australia’: The story of a non-retraction for plagiarism