Major publisher retracts 43 scientific papers amid wider fake peer-review scandal

[dariomax]

Source: Washington Post


The Washington Post
Major publisher retracts 43 scientific papers amid wider fake peer-review scandal

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By Fred Barbash March 27 at 1:49 AM

A major publisher of scholarly medical and science articles has retracted 43 papers because of “fabricated” peer reviews amid signs of a broader fake peer review racket affecting many more publications.

The publisher is BioMed Central, based in the United Kingdom, which puts out 277 peer-reviewed journals. A partial list of the retracted articles suggests most of them were written by scholars at universities in China, including China Medical University, Sichuan University, Shandong University and Jiaotong University Medical School. But Jigisha Patel, associate editorial director for research integrity at BioMed Central, said it’s not “a China problem. We get a lot of robust research of China. We see this as a broader problem of how scientists are judged.”

Meanwhile, the Committee on Publication Ethics, a multidisciplinary group that includes more than 9,000 journal editors, issued a statement suggesting a much broader potential problem. The committee, it said, “has become aware of systematic, inappropriate attempts to manipulate the peer review processes of several journals across different publishers.” Those journals are now reviewing manuscripts to determine how many may need to be retracted, it said.

Peer review is the vetting process designed to guarantee the integrity of scholarly articles by having experts read them and approve or disapprove them for publication. With researchers increasingly desperate for recognition, citations and professional advancement, the whole peer-review system has come under scrutiny in recent years for a host of flaws and irregularities, ranging from lackadaisical reviewing to cronyism to outright fraud.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/03/27/fabricated-peer-reviews-prompt-scientific-journal-to-retract-43-papers-systematic-scheme-may-affect-other-journals/

[Orrex]

1. Not surprising

Companies produce and distribute false "reviews" of their products all the time. This is more or less the same thing.

[truedelphi]

2. Unless Planet Earth is soon conquered by a race of benevolent,

And Intelligent Critters from outer space, I don't know what we can do about any of this.

The entire "industry" of science is just that - an industry. hell bent on profit and real science is suppressed to bring us products that big companies can profit from

So we end up with aspartame in so many foodstuffs, despite infant and early child brain specialists trying to let Congress know that this toxic product could be harmful to children and infants.

The Rumsfeld- Ron Reagan- Monsanto infestation of government agencies by Monsanto officials allowed that to get by.

A group of scientists in Caens France did research that was a start in showing the harms of genetic engineering. But the journal that published that information then was taken over by Corporate Interests. Once the Big Money people banished all the real scientists there, and had industry people replace the editors and others with those who would do their bidding, then the public was soon informed that the scientists in Caens were idiots and that as far as genetically modified crops and seeds, "nothing to see here, folks, now move along!"

And having Democrats in the WH and Congress has not helped. Fracking chemical research being undertaken by EPA officials was shut down, when the Obama Administration let those scientists know that such research was not their jobs. (The excellent documentary "Gaslands" and also "Gaslands II" has that story.)

[FiveGoodMen]

3. Some form of socialism would fix a lot of this

Because if no one could get filthy rich, then we have to be motivated by something other than money (and power, which is inter-convertible with money).

But I don't know how we get to socialism from where we are now.

[Jackpine Radical]

5. I'm on board with that.

I believe in a pretty egalitarian society, networks rather than hierarchies, a general dedication to communitarian principles, and a willingness to experiment at the social level. If a given intervention doesn't lead to the desired result, study it & tinker with it until it works.

[AngryDem001]

6. My problem is that we have given up on space,

in exchange for WAR, WAR, WAR, WAR!!

Why spend money on research on ways to get us to Mars, when we can can spend that money on the latest fighter jet that we really don't need.

[truedelphi]

7. And we spend that money on a fighter jet that might not even work!! n/t

[Adrahil]

9. I work as a defense contractor....

... and I agree. I sure would prefer working on a Mars mission.

[mike_c]

8. this is a bunch of whooie....

The majority of scientists in America are academic scientists, not employees of companies like Monsanto. Most fundamental, basic research occurs in university laboratories, paid for with public funds, and conducted in the public interest. In my department, for example, no one's research is funded by for-profit corporations like Monsanto. No one. Instead, we're almost all funded either by public funding (e.g. the National Science Foundation or the various federal land management agencies like the Dept of Interior) or by private foundations that make grants in the public interest, e.g. the Howard Hughes Medical Foundation.

That vast conspiracy of science and industry that you fear is not really very vast, after all.

And your specific reference to the Serolini affair suggests that you actually support the subversion of peer review and the erosion of professional standards in scientific publishing. The editor of the pay-to-publish vanity journal that ultimately published the Serolini et al paper has admitted that they did no meaningful peer review at all, once Serolini's check cleared.

[truedelphi]

10. OKay answer this, mike_c

We found out here in Calif. circa 2001 or 2002 that large company, Novartis, had put up some fifty millions of dollars to help set up research laboratories at Univ of California Berkeley.

Novartis is a big ag, big pesticide manufacturer.

Do you really think that any of that research is going to be designed to look carefully and properly at pesticides?

I have spent thirty years of my life investigating the Big Time Industries of the USA.

Studies "look" at things, but they are carefully designed, by industry with data permissably pulled from a study for many nefarious reasons.

And often the study is designed to avoid examining the very aspects of a product that need the examination!

For instance, when Monsanto was attempting to get a license for RoundUp from the EPA so that RoundUp could be sold over the counter, a study was carefully designed to ensure the product was not eliminated from license consideration.

What the scientists at Monsanto did was to do a feeding study of dogs that had consumed RoundUp.

The dogs then experienced a low or non-existent death rate - but the fact is, a proper study would have looked at how a dog would fare after being sprayed with RoundUp.

The reason I make that distinction is that I can't imagine people feeding their dogs RoundUp but dogs get sprayed all the time. (for instance, on a bright sunny day, you leave your pet in the backyard while you go shopping for a few hours, not realizing that the neighbor is going to spray RoundUp all over his property, which the 8 mph wind will be carrying over to your property.

The Monsanto scientists knew full well that the acids in the gut removed the more harmful effects for the dogs of being fed a small amount of RoundUp. But the scientists deliberately shied away from framing the study so that the dogs' respiratory systems were examined.



We are one of the only industrialized nations in the world that lets the company that wants a license do its own investigative studies! And now we are giving away the freedom of our university labs as well! (on edit: but in today's world of globblization, many other nations are now emulating our corporate-control of science model.)

And yes, now the companies like Novartis and Monsanto are buying up lab space.

You can believe that no fudging of data has ever happened. But since I have spent those thirty years talking and meeting with scientists who have been blacklisted when they refused to fudge data, or refused to design a study that would not look at the real aspects of risk a product contained, then I would have to disagree.

XXXX

[Pooka Fey]

12. +1

Thank you for this post.

[truedelphi]

11. Citatation with discussion regarding Novartis control over UC labs

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http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php/news/archive/2000/9302-bride-of-novartis-the-kept-university-and-a-poster-child-for-biotech-2112000

[/h2][/font color=blue]

Both articles found at the link are worth the read.

[mathematic]

4. My ideology is great. It's never retracted anything.

signed, your friendly internet crank.