This week at Retraction Watch featured a heartfelt essay by John Ioannidis on what he called the hijacking of evidence-based medicine, as well as the story of a peer reviewer who stole text for his own paper. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
There are hundreds of retractions per year, and a constant stream of new developments in publishing and fraud — all of which keeps our small staff very busy. As a result, we can’t immediately post on every new retraction that we or our readers discover. So we’ve created a new page to show you some … Continue reading Want to help us report? Here’s a sneak peek at what we’re working on
We always like to get a historical perspective on how scientists have tried to correct the record, such as this attempt in 1756 to retract a published opinion about some of the work of Benjamin Franklin. Although that 18th century note used the word “retract,” it wasn’t a retraction like what we see today, in … Continue reading What did retractions look like in the 17th century?
A highly cited paper by a well-known scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studies longevity could have aged better: The ten-year-old paper has earned its second correction. It’s one of multiple papers by lead author Leonard Guarente that have been questioned on PubPeer. Guarente has already retracted one, and plans to address another.
A promising early career researcher has been dismissed from her post at the National Center for Cardiovascular Research (CNIC) in Spain, following “an alleged ongoing fraud,” according to El Pais. We don’t know what exactly the internal investigation into Susana González’s work found; El Pais relied on anonymous sources, and the CNIC confirmed only that they dismissed her on February 29th. … Continue reading Stem cell researcher in Spain dismissed following investigation
The week at Retraction Watch was dominated by the retraction of “the Creator” paper, but we also reported on a scientist under investigation losing a grant, and a case brewing at a New Jersey university. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
Sonia Melo, the recipient of an early career award from the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) who fell under investigation after one of her papers was retracted, has now lost the grant. On the EMBO release announcing the nine awardees of the 2015 Installation Grants, there now appears an asterisk beside Melo’s name. At the bottom of … Continue reading EMBO awardee under investigation loses grant
Mike Rossner has made a name for himself in academic publishing as somewhat of a “manipulation detective.” As the editor of The Journal of Cell Biology, in 2002 he initiated a policy of screening all images in accepted manuscripts, causing the journal to reject roughly 1% of papers that had already passed peer review. Other … Continue reading Don’t trust an image in a scientific paper? Manipulation detective’s company wants to help.
The week at Retraction Watch featured a peer review nightmare come true, and a look at why publishing negative findings is hard. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
Anders Hamsten announced he would be resigning as vice-chancellor from Karolinska Institutet (KI) in the early hours of Saturday, February 13. In a press release we received at 12:16 a.m. local time in Stockholm, Hamsten issued the following statement: Following the criticism on the so called Macchiarini affair at KI I conclude it will be hard … Continue reading Karolinska vice-chancellor resigns following criticism of Macchiarini investigation