The authors of a preprint on use of hydroxychloroquine — the controversial drug heavily promoted by, and now apparently taken by, President Trump, at least for a few more days — along with azithromycin for COVID-19 have withdrawn the paper. The preprint, “Hydroxychloroquine plus azithromycin: a potential interest in reducing in-hospital morbidity due to COVID-19 … Continue reading French hydroxychloroquine-COVID-19 study withdrawn
A journal has retracted three review articles by Joachim Boldt, the German anesthetist who currently occupies the second spot on the Retraction Watch leaderboard with 103 retractions. The reviews, which appeared in Intensive Care Medicine, cover articles by Boldt that were published both well before and the same year as his scandal broke in 2010. … Continue reading A ‘very cautious’ process: Journal retracts reviews by anesthesiologist found to have committed fraud a decade ago
Readers, meet Beatriz Ychussie. Or don’t meet Beatriz Ychussie. Ychussie is a co-author of three recently retracted math papers. Or maybe not. The three articles — in the Journal of Inequalities and Applications, Advances in Difference Equations, and Fixed Point Theory and Applications, all Springer Nature titles — had an overlapping set of problems, including … Continue reading Another whodunit: The author no one can find
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. Sending thoughts to our readers and wishing them the best in this uncertain time. The week … Continue reading Weekend reads: Revelations about a controversial COVID-19 study; weaponizing uncertainty; a ‘super-spotter’ of duplicated images
A Springer Nature journal has retracted four papers by a group of materials scientists in France, Spain and Tunisia, and slapped expressions of concern on four more. All eight papers, from Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics, share three common authors: Abdelmajid Lassoued, Salah Ammar, and Abdellatif Gadri, of Université de Gabès in Tunisia. … Continue reading Materials science group loses four papers, has four more flagged
A group of researchers in Scotland have taken aim at a study published in early March which reported surprising findings on the genetics of the SARS-CoV-2 virus responsible for the Covid-19 pandemic. But the story of what it took to correct the record about the paper is likely to be all too familiar to those … Continue reading ‘Aggressive’ COVID-19 strains: What it takes to correct a flawed paper
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. Sending thoughts to our readers and wishing them the best in this uncertain time. The week … Continue reading Weekend reads: A COVID-19 conspiracy theory; a 15-year-old publishes in NEJM; the need for speed
Talk about the publish-or-perish version of the circle of life. A Springer Nature journal has retracted 33 articles — 29 from one special issue, and four from another — for a laundry list of publishing sins, from fake peer review to plagiarism to stealing unpublished manuscripts. And an Elsevier journal has retracted ten papers recently … Continue reading The circle of life, publish or perish edition: Two journals retract more than 40 papers
A group of researchers who published a controversial study that found no evidence of racial bias in deadly police shootings have corrected their paper but are standing by their findings — to the displeasure of some scholars who say the article is too flawed to stand. The 2019 study, “Officer characteristics and racial disparities in … Continue reading A study finding no evidence of racial bias in police shootings earns a correction that critics call an “opaque half measure”
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. Sending thoughts to our readers and wishing them the best in this uncertain time. The week … Continue reading Weekend reads: Retracted COVID-19 papers; a coronavirus study kept under wraps; Harvard and Jeffrey Epstein