Retractions, Post-Publication Peer Review, and Fraud: Scientific Publishing s Wild West

Transcription

1 Retractions, Post-Publication Peer Review, and Fraud: Scientific Publishing s Wild West Health Watch USA Lexington, KY November 3, 2017 Ivan Oransky, MD Co-Founder, Retraction Watch Distinguished Writer In Residence, NYU (Journalism) Editor at Large, MedPage Today Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine,

2 Is This Publishing Today?

3 Is This Publishing Today? Robots No Longer Considered Harmful I.P. Freely, Oliver Clothesoff, Jacques Strap, Hugh Jazz, Amanda Huginkiss

4 Faking It

5 Stealing It

6 Fake It Till You Make It

7 Retractions By The Numbers Year # of Retractions # of Papers Published % MM MM MM.280* MM MM.073 retractiondatabase.org

8 Where To Keep Track retractiondatabase.org

9 Common Reasons for Retractions Duplication ( self-plagiarism ) Plagiarism Image Manipulation Faked Data Fake Peer Reviews Publisher Error Authorship Issues Legal Reasons Not Reproducible

10 Most Retractions Due to Misconduct PNAS online October 1, 2012

11 Are We Catching Them All? Allison et al Nature

12 Are We Catching Them All? Overall, 3.8% of published papers contained problematic figures, with at least half exhibiting features suggestive of deliberate manipulation. The prevalence of papers with problematic images has risen markedly during the past decade.

13 Are We Catching Them All? A pooled weighted average of 1.97% (N = 7, 95%CI: ) of scientists admitted to have fabricated, falsified or modified data or results at least once a serious form of misconduct by any standard and up to 33.7% admitted other questionable research practices. In surveys asking about the behaviour of colleagues, admission rates were 14.12% (N = 12, 95% CI: ) for falsification, and up to 72% for other questionable research practices. Fanelli, D.

14 Who Retracts Most?

15 Which Journals Retract? -Infection and Immunity 2011

16 What Happens to Retracted Papers Citations? -Assn of College & Research Libraries 2011

17 What Happens to Retracted Papers Budd et al, 1999: Citations? Retracted articles received more than 2,000 postretraction citations; less than 8% of citations acknowledged the retraction Preliminary study of the present data shows that continued citation remains a problem Of 391 citations analyzed, only 6% acknowledge the retraction

18 The Most Highly Cited

19 Do Journals Get the Word Out?

20 Do Journals Get the Word Out? Journals often fail to alert the naïve reader; 31.8% of retracted papers were not noted as retracted in any way.

21 Is This A Useful Retraction Notice? At the request of the authors, the following manuscript has been retracted: [citation] -Journal of Neuroscience

22 Why The Opacity?

23 Now This Is Good News The JBC s practice of saying very little in retraction and withdrawal notices has been described by many in the community as opaque and rightfully so. After reviewing the practices of other journals and consulting with our legal counsel and publications committee, we ve reconsidered our approach. JBC retraction and withdrawal notices now will explain, with as much detail as possible, why papers have been withdrawn or retracted. -Journal of Biological Chemistry

24 What Should Retraction Notices Look Like?

25 Post-Publication Peer Review On The Rise

26 Post-Publication Peer Review On The Rise PubPeer was created specifically to bypass the suffocating and restricted channels of correspondence to the editors and journal commenting. The tens of thousands of useful comments that users have posted on PubPeer were previously suppressed by that system, yet facilitated by an open framework encouraging factual discussion. We re not going back. -- Brandon Stell, co-founder, PubPeer

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28 False Claims Act

29 Crime Doesn t Pay Anymore

30 Doing The Right Thing Does

31 The Real Problem? Our ranking results seem to suggest that selective reporting, selective citing, and flaws in quality assurance and mentoring are the major evils of modern research. A picture emerges not of concern about wholesale fraud but of profound concerns that many scientists may be cutting corners and engage in sloppy science, possibly with a view to get more positive and more spectacular results that will be easier to publish in high-impact journals and will attract many citations. Bouter et al, Research Integrity and Peer Review, 2016

32 Contact Info/Acknowledgements Thanks: The MacArthur Foundation The Arnold Foundation The Helmsley Trust