Would you consider a donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work?

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

• Misspelled cell lines take on new lives — and why that’s bad for the scientific literature
• Journal blacklists doctor in Pakistan ‘out of an abundance of caution’
• Up to one in seven submissions to hundreds of Wiley journals flagged by new paper mill tool
• Rejected paper pops up elsewhere after one journal suspected manipulation

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up past 400. There are more than 47,000 retractions in The Retraction Watch Database — which is now part of Crossref. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains more than 250 titles. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately — or our list of top 10 most highly cited retracted papers? What about The Retraction Watch Mass Resignations List?

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

• An Elsevier paper written by ChatGPT goes viral.
• “Harvard Probe Finds Honesty Researcher Engaged in Scientific Misconduct.” More here.
• “Superconductivity scandal: the inside story of deception in a rising star’s physics lab.”
• “These investigations always take too long, are shrouded in secrecy, and lead to public statements crafted by attorneys and crisis consultants that are evasive and incomplete.” Indeed.
• “Australia’s chief scientist takes on the journal publishers gatekeeping knowledge.”
• “Five years ago, Sara Farshchi completed her PhD in Linguistics at Lund University. Now her research has been published under the names of three Ukrainian researchers.”
• “I sent my data to the original journal, and they didn’t care at all. It was very hard to get it published somewhere where you thought the reader of the original paper would find it.”
• “Citation metrics and strategic mutations of scientific research: narratives and evidence.”
• “Using automated analysis of the bibliography to detect potential research integrity issues.”
• Among 6200 medical residents in China, “53.7% of participants admitted to having committed at least one form of research misconduct.” A preprint we featured in October is published.
• “She said the output-focused KPIs have led to an overemphasis on the production of publications in academic journals.”
• “Figures just out reveal that the US National Science Foundation (NSF) received 54 allegations of research misconduct in the 2022–23 financial year.”
• “Peer Review and Scientific Publishing Are Faltering.”
• Court upholds sanctions against University of Northern Iowa professor.
• “And so when they see contradictory result after contradictory result, I don’t blame the public for losing trust in science, because we have not worked to build our own trustability, because we are not policing fraud enough.”
• “More published research should be debunked and retracted, watchdogs say.”
• Not just science: “Princess Catherine Apologizes, Saying She Edited Image.”
• “Papermills prefer Open Access.”
• “‘Damning’ FDA inspection report undermines positive trial results of possible Alzheimer’s drug.”
• “[T]he scientific community writ large need[s] to redouble their commitment to conduct, communicate, critique, and—when an error is found, or misconduct detected—correct the published record in ways that both merit and earn public confidence.” 
• “AI-generated rat genitalia: Swiss publisher of scientific journal under pressure.”
• “Automatically listing senior members of departments as co-authors is highly prevalent in health sciences: meta-analysis of survey research.”
• “I don’t think we should ‘combat’ predatory publishers: An interview with Jeffrey Beall.”
• “If we discourage negative reviews, positive ones will lose meaning.”
• “Integrity Issues Rampant in Alzheimer’s Research, Say Investigators.”
• “Journals must expand access to peer review data.”
• “Plagiarism row brews in Pondicherry University.”
• “How Science Sleuths Track Down Bad Research.”
• “Predatory publishing goes to the dogs.” It’s not the first time.

Like Retraction Watch? You can make a tax-deductible contribution to support our work, subscribe to our free daily digest or paid weekly update, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, or add us to your RSS reader. If you find a retraction that’s not in The Retraction Watch Database, you can let us know here. For comments or feedback, email us at team@retractionwatch.com.

Would you consider a donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work?

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

• KPMG government report on research integrity makes up reference involving Retraction Watch founders
• Cancer paper earns expression of concern nearly two years after investigation report is revealed
• Editorial board members resign from obstetrics journal to protest handling of allegations
• Iran COVID-vaccine paper with ‘serious flaws’ retracted
• How a sleuth’s email turned a correction into a retraction

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up past 400. There are more than 47,000 retractions in The Retraction Watch Database — which is now part of Crossref. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains more than 250 titles. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately — or our list of top 10 most highly cited retracted papers? What about The Retraction Watch Mass Resignations List?

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

• “The dark world of ‘citation cartels.'”
• “Virtues and vocation: An historical perspective on scientific integrity in the twenty-first century.”
• Another Nobelist retracts a paper.
• University of Pennsylvania pays back $1.7 million after misconduct.
• “Dentist José Luis Calvo Guirado joins the top 20 scientists whose studies have been retracted.”
• “Didier Raoult and his institute found fame during the pandemic.” Then critics dug in.
• “Science integrity sleuths welcome legal aid fund for whistleblowers.”
• “Science, integrity and ethics: a survey reveals the concerns of Inserm researchers.”
• “Alzheimer’s scientist to correct two papers because of data inconsistencies.”
• “Analysis of justification for and gender bias in author order among those contributing equally.”
• “Two Canadian scientists were fired in 2021 for passing information to China.”
• “How to avoid being duped by predatory journals.
• “Whistleblower’s decades long fight to save patients from dangerous research.”
• “Fake academic papers are on the rise: why they’re a danger and how to stop them.”
• “Publish and perish: New issues in publication ethics.” Or not so new.
• “Nature publishes too few papers from women researchers — that must change.”
• “Scientists are already using image-generating models to jazz up papers and presentations. But some say these tools could harm research.”
• “Generative artificial intelligence and scientific publishing: urgent questions, difficult answers.”
• “U.K. science minister pays damages to researcher she accused of airing ‘extremist’ views.”
• “Influencers on social media may cite VAERS data as evidence supporting misinformed conclusions about vaccine safety.”
• “MeToo paper investigated as academic threatens legal action: Article on MeToo movement in Iran named researcher, who denies wrongdoing, as ‘serial abuser.’”
• “Who is at fault when people fake scientific research?”
• “Incorrectly conducted statistical analyses appear to be one of the primary factors propagating misinformation, including skepticism toward vaccinations.”
• “Emerging plagiarism in peer-review evaluation reports: a tip of the iceberg?”
• “Who fakes cancer research? Apparently, lots of people.”
• “Columbia University Hospital DEI Chief Is Serial Plagiarist, Complaint Alleges.”
• “Does it pay to pay? A comparison of the benefits of open-access publishing across various sub-fields in biology.”
• Could Springer Nature try for yet another IPO — its fourth attempt?
• “The super league of Top Italian Scientists.”
• “Danish publishing house shreds freelancer’s book after plagiarism – gives money back to all customers.”
• “China has a list of suspect journals and it’s just been updated.” An interview.
• “Digital Scholarly Journals Are Poorly Preserved: A Study of 7 Million Articles.”

Like Retraction Watch? You can make a tax-deductible contribution to support our work, subscribe to our free daily digest or paid weekly update, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, or add us to your RSS reader. If you find a retraction that’s not in The Retraction Watch Database, you can let us know here. For comments or feedback, email us at team@retractionwatch.com.

Would you consider a donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work?

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

• A cardiac surgeon’s tortuous efforts – including three lawsuits – to get the scientific record corrected
• Saudi university dean has 20 retractions in two years
• Exclusive: Embattled dean accused of plagiarism in NSF report
• Exclusive: Physician in India who coauthored review with US profs is running a paper mill
• Exclusive: Cardiologist in Pakistan continued publishing after journal shown evidence he was running a paper mill

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up past 400. There are more than 47,000 retractions in The Retraction Watch Database — which is now part of Crossref. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains more than 250 titles. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately — or our list of top 10 most highly cited retracted papers? What about The Retraction Watch Mass Resignations List?

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

• Have we reached peak retraction? Our Ivan Oransky speaks to Peter Coy of The New York Times.
• In May 2023, 31 editors of the Sustainable Organisations section of Frontiers in Sustainability resigned.
• “Autism journal retracts speech-recognition paper, pauses special issue.”
• “Indigenous people sue over alleged Canadian secret medical experiment.”
• “Influential abortion-pill studies retracted: the science behind the decision.” More here.
• A Nobel prize winner earns an 11th retraction.
• Molecular Therapy decides to explain why a paper was retracted two years ago after the withdrawal appears on the front page of The New York Times.
• “The highest-profile research is heavily influenced by cultural forces and career incentives that are not necessarily aligned with the dispassionate pursuit of truth.”
• “Power relations would be more equitable if all leading disciplinary journals and books were published in multiple languages, says Simon Marginson.”
• “A new preprint from economist Patrick Vu argues that there’s a tension between correcting for pseudoreplication (i.e. non-independence of observations), and publication bias.”
• “Are scientists routinely using LLMs to write papers?”
• “From Singapore to Athens via Hong Kong: The Itinerary of Research Integrity from Scientific Research to Real-life Applications and Policy Making.”
• “Federal and university research misconduct regulations and policies may need to be revised to provide institutions with clearer guidance on how to deal with misconduct allegations against top officials.”
• “Eureka! How a Stanford study revealed the success of research failures.”
• “As US schools consider a [chocolate milk] ban, an old, sketchy study [by Brian Wansink] holds sway.”
• “Early COVID-19 research is riddled with poor methods and low-quality results − a problem for science the pandemic worsened but didn’t create.”
• “[G]eneticist and former eLife Editor-in-Chief Michael Eisen called on X for a retraction of the Nature paper…”
• “Fraudulent studies are undermining the reliability of systematic reviews – a study of the prevalence of problematic images in preclinical studies of depression.
• “Should we penalise scientific misconduct in rankings scores?”
• “Brisbane surgeon found to have used woman in human trial without written consent.”
• “[D]yslexia study marred by methodological and ethical problems, researchers say.”
• “Authorship and ChatGPT: a Conservative View.”
• “Bounded research ethicality: researchers rate themselves and their field as better than others at following good research practice.”
• “Penn Calls for Withdrawal of ORI’s Misconduct Proposed Reg; Many Commenters Also Critical.”
• “United2Act Against Paper Mills: Fighting Fraud that Corrupts the Scholarly Record.”
• “Institutional Ethics Committees Move Too Slowly, Critics Say.”
• “Charging authors for scientific publishing is fundamentally flawed.”
• “Research integrity and academic medicine: the pressure to publish and research misconduct.”
• Updates in a legal authorship dispute.
• A “sleuth taking on the widespread problem of research misconduct.”

Like Retraction Watch? You can make a tax-deductible contribution to support our work, subscribe to our free daily digest or paid weekly update, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, or add us to your RSS reader. If you find a retraction that’s not in The Retraction Watch Database, you can let us know here. For comments or feedback, email us at team@retractionwatch.com.

Would you consider a donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work?

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

• Paper claiming ‘extensive’ harms of COVID-19 vaccines to be retracted
• How (not) to deal with missing data: An economist’s take on a controversial study
• Exclusive: Elsevier to retract paper by economist who failed to disclose data tinkering
• Science ‘Majorana’ particle paper earns another editor’s note as expert committee finds no misconduct
• Medical society takes millions from company that sued it for defamation – and lost

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up past 400. There are more than 47,000 retractions in The Retraction Watch Database — which is now part of Crossref. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains more than 250 titles. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately — or our list of top 10 most highly cited retracted papers? What about The Retraction Watch Mass Resignations List?

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

• “Wanted: Scientific Errors. Cash Reward.”
• MDPI says “A total of 84 papers spanning 23 journals are potentially affected by templated reports and citation misconduct.”
• “Retracted studies the latest in a decadeslong abortion-science fight.”
• “Our findings reveal both national and disciplinary gaps in attention to reproducibility and replicability, aggravated by incentive misalignment and resource constraints.”
• “‘Exact replica’: Fort Hare prof at heart of plagiarism and predatory journal scandal.”
• “Competition among publishers and scientific journals for market dominance resulted in an increase in both the number of journals and the cost of publishing and accessing scientific papers.”
• “Duke’s 3-year fraud investigation into Dan Ariely has ended, and the star professor still has a job. Does he want it?”
• “Honorary authorship is highly prevalent in health sciences: systematic review and meta-analysis of surveys.”
• “At The Lancet, we are discussing how we can best strengthen trustworthiness screening of the research submitted to us.”
• Top “oncologist disputes junior scientist’s claims in lawsuit over research credit.”
• “Claudine Gay’s downfall is no victory for research integrity.”
• “Why Scientists Should Care About Society Publishing.”
• “Could AI Disrupt Peer Review?”
• “Amid high profits and falling wages, peer reviewers must be paid.”
• “Large Language Models for Scientific Publishing: Please, Do Not Make Them a Foe.”
• “Publication ethics in biomedical journals are receiving increasing attention.”
• “‘I should do what?’ Addressing research misconduct through values alignment.”
• A publisher silently removes an author who was alarmed to see her name on a paper.
• “Ambiguity in Ethical Standards: Global Versus Local Science in Explaining Academic Plagiarism.”
• “[T]his study suggests that the primary reason for the lower citation rates at the author level is women publishing fewer articles over their careers.”
• “Mistakes, fakes and a giant rat penis: why are so many science papers being retracted?” Our Ivan Oransky appears on the Guardian’s science podcast.
• “The wrong word for the job? The ethics of collecting data on ‘race’ in academic publishing.”
• “The Use of Artificial Intelligence in Writing Scientific Review Articles.”
• “‘Ethics is not a checkbox exercise.’ Bioinformatician Yves Moreau reacts to mass retraction of papers from China.”
• “Salami slicing and other kinds of… misconduct: A faux pas for the author, a disaster for science.”

Like Retraction Watch? You can make a tax-deductible contribution to support our work, subscribe to our free daily digest or paid weekly update, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, or add us to your RSS reader. If you find a retraction that’s not in The Retraction Watch Database, you can let us know here. For comments or feedback, email us at team@retractionwatch.com.

Would you consider a donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work?

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

• Engineering dean’s journal serves as a supply chain for ‘bizarre’ articles
• Econ journal board quits en masse because Wiley ‘appeared to emphasize quantity over quality’
• Elsevier investigating papers after IEEE finds ‘self-plagiarism’
• Stanford prof who sued critics loses appeal against $500,000 in legal fees
• Highly cited scientist published dozens of papers after his death

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up past 400. There are more than 47,000 retractions in The Retraction Watch Database — which is now part of Crossref. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains more than 250 titles. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately — or our list of top 10 most highly cited retracted papers? What about The Retraction Watch Mass Resignations List?

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

• That paper no one could stop talking about for 24 hours has been retracted.
• “China conducts first nationwide review of retractions and research misconduct.”
• “A Columbia Surgeon’s Study Was Pulled. He Kept Publishing Flawed Data.”
• “Vendor offering citations for purchase is latest bad actor in scholarly publishing.”
• “Is ‘silent’ outcome switching in clinical trials research misconduct?”
• “Harvard Extension School Administrator Accused of Plagiarism in Anonymous Complaint.”
• “Overall, ChatGPT does not yet seem to be accurate enough to be trusted for any formal or informal research quality evaluation tasks.”
• “The Perplexing Puzzle of the Top 2% Scientists List.”
• “Scholarly Debate About Drug Efficacy in Scientific Journals Is ‘Protected Speech,’ Not Libel.”
• “Passion is not misconduct.”
• “Why do some academics review so many journal papers?”
• “Science hype has become a serious problem.”
• “The Poor Reputation of Our Scientists.”
• “A once-ignored community of science sleuths now has the research community on its heels.”
• Open peer review “is growing, but still far from common practice.”
• “Plagiarism Has No Place at Harvard — or Anywhere Else In Higher Ed.”
• “How common is academic plagiarism?”
• Kiel University’s president resigns after image manipulation allegations.
• Oops. “The Editor has retracted this article because, owing to an administration error in the editorial office, it was published before the peer review process had been undertaken.”
• “Nearly 500 clinical trials carried out in Nordic countries since 2016 remain unpublished.”
• “I thought I could conquer academic writing on my own—until I learned better.”
• “Peer review isn’t perfect − I know because I teach others how to do it and I’ve seen firsthand how it comes up short.”
• “Worse than Plagiarism: False Firstness Claims and Dismissive Literature Reviews.”
• “An accidental discovery of scientific fraud.”
• “Retraction of Academic Literature: The Urology Perspective.”
• “When did a rejection of an already accepted article become a thing?” Archive.
• “‘Publish or Perish’: The dark side of tenured professorship.”
• “The court’s judgment on the true identity of the author responsible for identity fraud…” A letter about a case we covered in 2022.
• “A flurry of research misconduct cases has universities scrambling to protect themselves.”
• “How journals are fighting back against a wave of questionable images.”
• “Genetics journal retracts 18 papers from China due to human rights concerns.”
• “The Scandals Rocking Cancer Science Matter to Your Health.”

Like Retraction Watch? You can make a tax-deductible contribution to support our work, subscribe to our free daily digest or paid weekly update, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, or add us to your RSS reader. If you find a retraction that’s not in The Retraction Watch Database, you can let us know here. For comments or feedback, email us at team@retractionwatch.com.