Interesting case study raised by the Retraction Watch blog.
A 2009 journal article – promoted in a news release by the journal – and picked up by many news organizations – has now been retracted by the authors.
But now the journal issued no news release about the retraction – an issue of transparency that the RW blog raises.
And you can guess how much news coverage the retraction will get.
And this was all over a molecule that could supposedly “make breast tumors respond to a drug to which they’re not normally susceptible” – as the RW blog put it. But it was also a molecule, RW points out, that wasn’t even in clinical trials yet.
He/she who lives by the journal news release risks one’s longterm credibility.
Opinions on other issues in news, journals, PR, advertising, marketing
The tale of two “negative” studies. Or, how spin is applied to make research findings look more impressive. A must read. https://johnmandrola.substack.com/p/the-tale-of-two-negative-studies
The @nytimes chose to interview one of the editors of the @AnnalsofIM (publisher of this paper) who "gushed with extraordinary glee: It’s huge! There are very few things that reduce your mortality by 30%."
Turns out coffee is not one of those few things despite all that glee. https://twitter.com/garyschwitzer/status/1533202075928215558
Comments (8)
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Gunther Eysenbach
December 3, 2010 at 11:19 amI’ve written about another case – where there was also an empirical evaluation of how much attention the retraction got – and “retraction ethics” here:
Eysenbach G, Kummervold PE
“Is Cybermedicine Killing You?” – The Story of a Cochrane Disaster
J Med Internet Res 2005;7(2):e21
doi: 10.2196/jmir.7.2.e21
Elaine Schattner, M.D.
December 3, 2010 at 12:42 pmYes, of course a retraction should get equal attention as the initial statement of fact.
Carolyn Thomas
December 8, 2010 at 6:24 pmSeems there’s been a wee rash of journal retractions lately – like the case of Dr. Andrew Wakefield, the now-discredited darling of the autism/childhood vaccination-link conspiracy movement whose 1998 study published in The Lancet was finally pulled (12 years later!) after its evidence was described by the journal’s editors as a “a damning indictment of the man and his research.”
And last month, we learned of the Nobel prize-winning scientist Dr. Linda Buck who has been forced to retract not one, not two, but THREE of her published peer-reviewed journal articles.
This really pokes a damning finger at the entire peer review system, not to mention the reputation of those whose current and future work gets published.
I for one am doing my small bit to help increase coverage of retractions! See more on THE ETHICAL NAG: MARKETING ETHICS FOR THE EASILY SWAYED: “Nobel Prize Winner Forced to Retract Three Flawed Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles”
Gregory D. Pawelski
December 16, 2010 at 2:32 pmTop retractions of 2010 by TheScientist. A list of the biggest papers and scientists involved in retractions in the last year.
http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/57864/
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