The week at Retraction Watch featured a look at what happens to authors when a journal is delisted, a reminder of how hard it is to figure out whether a paper has been retracted, and a survey on how common plagiarism is in economics. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
A journal is retracting a paper after it discovered researchers gave a child the wrong supplement for more than a year. Rhiannon Bugno, managing editor for Biological Psychiatry, told Retraction Watch the mix-up did not put the patient at risk. However, the mistake was enough for the journal’s editor, John Krystal, of Yale University, to … Continue reading Child took wrong compound for over a year after “communication error”
Title: Bioethics and Medical Education What Caught Our Attention: As we’ve said before, you can’t make this stuff up: An article on bioethics had its own ethical issues to deal with. It turns out, the authors had “substantial unreferenced overlap” with another article, that “overlap” including the article’s title. Here’s a side by side comparison … Continue reading Caught Our Notice: Bioethics article retracted for…ethics violation
Nowadays, there are many ways to access a paper — on the publisher’s website, on MEDLINE, PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, and other outlets. So when the publisher retracts a paper, do these outlets consistently mark it as such? And if they don’t, what’s the impact? Researchers Caitlin Bakker and Amy Riegelman at the University of Minnesota … Continue reading Want to tell if a paper has been retracted? Good luck
Shocked, confused, disappointed — these are the reactions of authors who recently published in a cancer journal that was delisted by a company that indexes journals. Recently, Clarivate Analytics announced it would discontinue indexing Oncotarget after the first few issues of 2018 — as a result, the journal would not receive a current impact factor. The company … Continue reading When a journal is delisted, authors pay a price
An independent analysis of how The Ohio State University reviewed allegations of misconduct against a high-profile cancer researcher has found that the institution “complied with applicable law and with relevant institutional policies and reached reasoned and supportable conclusions.” The review follows numerous allegations of research misconduct against Carlo Croce, described in a March 8 story … Continue reading Probe into Carlo Croce reached “defensible and reasonable” decisions, says external review
A researcher who is facing a criminal investigation in Italy for research misconduct has seen five more papers retracted, for a total of 16 15. Molecular and Cellular Biology has retracted four papers published between 1987 to 2001 by Alfredo Fusco, a cancer researcher in Italy; the Journal of Virology retracted one 1985 paper. Fusco was … Continue reading Retraction count for Italian researcher swells to 15 as five papers fall
It’s always interesting to know how many researchers in any given field engage in so-called questionable research practices that don’t rise to the level of out-and-out fraud: honorary authorship, citing articles they don’t read, choosing reference lists that would please editors or reviewers, for instance. And when the researchers work in a field with potential … Continue reading “Ethical shades of gray:” 90% of researchers in new health field admit to questionable practices
One of the most common reasons for retractions is image manipulation. When searching for evidence of it, researchers often rely on what their eyes tell them. But what if screening tools could help? Last week, researchers described a new automated tool to screen images for duplication (reported by Nature News); with help from publishing giant … Continue reading New tool looks for signs of image doctoring
Carlo Croce, who has had numerous papers retracted and corrected for issues including image manipulation, has received an award for more than $300,000 for his achievements in personalized medicine. The Dan David Prize, awarded earlier this month by a charitable organization based at Tel Aviv University, bestowed $1 million to three researchers who have “made pioneering … Continue reading Cancer researcher under cloud of suspicion wins $300,000 science prize