Stephen Barrett, a U.S. physician and founder of Quackwatch, makes a point of calling out homeopathy and other health products and practices that lack evidence.  In that vein, earlier this year he emailed the Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery to critique a 2019 article by Walter Tatch titled “Opioid Prescribing Can Be Reduced in … Continue reading Journal sends cease-and-desist letter to a company marketing a homeopathic alternative to opioids

Mark Jacobson, a Stanford professor who sued a critic and a scientific journal for $10 million but then dropped the case, is appealing a recent court order that he pay the journal’s publisher more than $400,000 in legal fees. Those fees are based on an anti-SLAPP statute, “designed to provide for early dismissal of meritless … Continue reading Stanford prof appeals order to pay $428K in legal fees after dropping defamation suit

A leading repository of social science which is owned by Elsevier has reposted an article it removed on New Year’s Day after the author was accused of defamation and the site was threatened with legal action if it didn’t remove the paper.  The article in question was written by Ann Lipton, the associate dean for … Continue reading Preprint on discrimination against women reinstated by Elsevier server after removal for legal threats

A journal has retracted a 2020 paper about looking for “suspicious activities” on the India-China border — including an incursion in which 20 Indian soldiers were reportedly killed – citing “legal reasons.” The abstract in Springer Nature’s Journal of the Indian Society of Remote Sensing, which alleges that the soldiers were “brutally killed,” is rife … Continue reading Paper on “suspicious activities” on India-China border retracted

A neuroscientist once called the “prince of panspermia” has lost a lawsuit against Springer Nature stemming from a 2019 paper of his that a journal retracted. Here’s the summary from United States District Judge John P. Cronan, who heard the original case: Rhawn Joseph, Ph.D., proceeding pro se, is a scientist who claims he found … Continue reading Court tosses $50 billion suit by ‘prince of panspermia’ against Springer Nature

A Stanford University professor who tried to sue a critic and the journal that published an unfavorable view of his work is opposing a judge’s order that he pay $75,000 in legal fees generated in the case.  In 2017, Mark Jacobson, an engineer who studies energy at the California institution, sued Christopher Clack and the … Continue reading Stanford prof fights efforts to make him pay at least $75,000 in legal fees after dropping defamation suit

A former veterinary student at Tufts University has settled a $1 million lawsuit alleging that she was punished for claiming that her mentor at the school falsified data in a 2014 article.  In 2019, Kristy Meadows sued Tufts and two faculty members, Elizabeth Byrnes and Dean Joyce Knoll, whom she said retaliated against her for … Continue reading Former Tufts grad student settles lawsuit alleging retaliation for whistleblowing

More than three and a half years after being alerted to concerns about the data in a 2015 article, an obstetrics journal has finally retracted the paper, citing a lack of ethics approval for the work. Meanwhile, the co-author of a meta-analysis that relies heavily on the paper has suggested that some critics of the … Continue reading Critics face legal threats as journal takes more than three years to act