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Cochrane has implemented a new system for checking whether any of its thousands of published reviews include retracted studies in their analyses, the organization announced today. The effort already has turned up dozens of reviews that will now get closer scrutiny to ensure their results and recommendations hold up. Cochrane publishes systematic reviews on health-related … Continue reading New system for flagging retracted papers finds scores of them in Cochrane reviews

In the fall of 2024, Matt Williams was grading papers at Massey University in New Zealand when he noticed something off in a study one of his students had cited. The study, published in 2016, reported overwhelming evidence suggesting that eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, or EMDR, is an effective treatment for depression. But the … Continue reading Journal retracts depression treatment study with findings called ‘too good to be true’

The editors of a semantics journal owned by Springer Nature have resigned to launch a new one, citing pressure from the company to increase their annual publication volume by 25%. The editor-in-chief and the two associate editors Natural Language Semantics resigned from the journal in early April, editor-in-chief Amy Rose Deal, a linguistics professor at the … Continue reading Editors of semantics journal resign, launch new journal after publisher ‘ultimatum’

With an h-index of 75, computer scientist Thippa Reddy Gadekallu ranks among the world’s most highly cited researchers. But the speed and means of his ascent to those lofty heights of scholarship has been as remarkable as the achievement itself. In less than a decade, Gadekallu, a professor at Zhejiang A&F University in China, has … Continue reading A researcher’s unusually high h-index gives a window into an expansive citation network

For most researchers, having an article accepted comes with constructive feedback from editors and reviewers. But when a sociology researcher learned his article was accepted at a Taylor & Francis journal, he was surprised to find the journal had skipped the peer review process altogether. Martino C. submitted his article on the effects of economic … Continue reading In what EIC calls an ‘honest mistake,’ journal approves paper without peer reviewing it

A Texas court has dismissed a lawsuit by a biochemist accused of research misconduct who claimed her former institution violated her due process rights during its investigation. Sonia Melo sued The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston in 2025, alleging the institution failed to follow its policies during a misconduct investigation into … Continue reading Court dismisses biochemist’s lawsuit against MD Anderson

If your week flew by — we know ours did — catch up here with what you might have missed. The week at Retraction Watch featured: Also the deadline for our Ctrl-Z Award is this Sunday! This $2,500 award recognizes scientists who discover substantial errors in their published work and take meaningful steps to correct … Continue reading Weekend reads: White House proposal prohibits federal funds for APCs; sleuths say Thermo Fisher doctored data; sleuth in China takes to social media

Researchers in Vietnam who fabricate data or plagiarize papers may be permanently barred from future scientific work, according to new guidance from the country’s Ministry of Science and Technology. The new framework, announced May 25, requires science and technology organizations to implement rules against research misconduct, and it outlines a process for investigating and sanctioning … Continue reading Vietnam researchers face bans and funding cuts for violating integrity rules

A toxicology journal has retracted a 16-year-old study linking hepatitis B vaccines to autism in children following an independent statistical review that found a half-dozen concerns with the study’s methodology. Using data from the National Health Interview Survey, the authors claimed boys vaccinated in their first month of life had “threefold greater odds for autism … Continue reading Journal retracts study linking hepatitis vaccine to autism that was included in CDC review

A humanities journal has retracted an article about the controversial theory of parental alienation after receiving legal threats from a group that supports the concept. On May 19, the Integrated Journal for Research in Arts and Humanities (IJRAH) removed a review article by Robert Keith Head suggesting the theory of parental alienation is unsupported by … Continue reading Journal retracts paper criticizing parental alienation theory after group threatens to sue