The week at Retraction Watch featured the revocation of a PhD, a questionable way to boost university rankings, and a look at what editors should do when a researcher known to have committed misconduct submits a new manuscript. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
A group of researchers have retracted their 2016 case report about a rare dermatologic disorder in the wake of disputes about authorship and institutional approval. The paper describes a young boy with Job’s Syndrome, in which patients experience painful, itchy and frequently disfiguring skin lesions, along with a constellation of other possible symptoms. The condition … Continue reading Hey, that’s my case study: Another retraction after doctors claim rights to case write-up
Readers who follow scientific publishing will know the term “citation stacking” — as a profile-boosting technique, we’ve seen journals ask authors to cite them, and individual scientists work together to cite each other, forming “citation cartels.” And now, we’ve seen a university do it. A university in Malaysia has instructed its engineering faculty to cite … Continue reading One way to boost your uni’s ranking: Ask faculty to cite each other
Earlier this year, a raging controversy regarding a new drug spilled into the pages of a leading medical journal: the head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and another official publicly called for the retraction or correction of a peer-reviewed article about the drug. They didn’t get their wish. Now, documents released by the … Continue reading Released FDA docs reveal details of agency’s (failed) attempt to retract paper
In June, Gene Emery, a journalist for Reuters Health, was assigned to write a story about an upcoming paper in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, set to come off embargo and be released to the public in a few days. Pretty quickly, he noticed something seemed off. Emery saw that the data … Continue reading Journal knew about problems in a high-profile study before it came out — and did nothing for over a month
In 2014, researchers condemned the Spanish Government for “destroying the R&D horizon of Spain and the future of a complete generation” in the acknowledgment section of a paper about wireless networks. Three years later, the two last authors of the paper are protesting that protest, issuing a correction to alert readers that they did not … Continue reading Curious: A paper’s acknowledgments harshly criticized Spanish gov’t funding. Now two authors object.
Peer reviewers, like authors, are supposed to declare any potential conflicts of interest. But what happens when they don’t? Take this case: In a court transcript from Feb. 23, 2017, Bryan Hardin testified that he was a peer reviewer on a 2016 paper in Critical Reviews in Toxicology, which found that asbestos does not increase … Continue reading What should journals do when peer reviewers do not disclose potential conflicts?
The week at Retraction Watch featured a look at publishing bounties around the world, and the story of how the “right to be forgotten” law had led to a retraction. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
The week at Retraction Watch featured the retraction of a 35-year-old paper written by a cat, and the retraction of a study about a controversial gene editing technique. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
Post-publication peer review isn’t just for scientists. Newspaper reporters can help correct the scientific record, too. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has corrected a journal article on Legionnaire’s disease after the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette revealed what seems to be efforts by the researchers to misrepresent their data. In a series of articles … Continue reading Newspaper series prompts CDC to correct paper on Legionnaire’s disease