So why is not every paper that cites a retracted paper automatically flagged? THe peer reviewing process seems to have a lot of room for improvement.
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Many scientists citing two scandalous Covid-19 papers ignore their retractions
11–20 of 48 posts
Re: Many scientists citing two scandalous Covid-19 papers ignore their retractions
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
This appears to be a totally unrelated set of authors attempting to force a journal to retract someone else’s paper. They literally have a dedicated website to promote this retraction and if you look up the authors, some of them headline their Twitter with it. The first author just today posted on Twitter that mRNA vaccines can alter your DNA. The intent of the retraction seems to be to suggest that the epidemic is o…
Is the retracted paper correct? That’s the only question that matters. And perhaps those scientists have developed their views by actually looking at the science? Is that possible? Don’t shoot the messenger.
There is no retracted paper. Like the GP correctly points out, this is a website designed to pressure another group to retract their paper. The authors of said paper have not retracted it, although there were minor addendums (none of them in response to the website, I hasten to add).
The paper in question -- Detection of 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) by real-time RT-PCR[1][2] --, was the first paper (as far as I know, one of the first, certainly) outlining a protocol for a PCR test protocol for Sars-CoV-2, back in January 2020. In other words, these were among the first people who documented a way to detect whether a sample represented Sars-CoV-2. The authors have previously published about other coronaviruses like Sars-CoV-1 and MERS, e.g. [3] appears at first glance to be a well received paper. Here's [4] their paper on the detection of Sars-CoV-1 (or, back then, just Sars-CoV) via PCR.
[1] https://www.eurosurveillance.org/content/10.2807/1560-7917.E...
[2] https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=1445202628475605806...
[3] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S006535271...
[4] https://www.eurosurveillance.org/content/10.2807/ese.17.39.2...
Re: Many scientists citing two scandalous Covid-19 papers ignore their retractions
#13>> A lead author of the paper, biomathematician Maik Pietzner at the University of Cambridge, said that although the paper was submitted after the retractions occurred, it was written beforehand, and “the current pandemic requires immediate response.” However, the paper was published 4 months after its submission.
Particularly during the pandemic, the peer review / publishing process has become so slow in some cases that it's easily understandable to have not removed a citation, or to have had a year go by before publication.
1) I can't think of too many times that I've gone back to the source to read a paper. I download the PDF and never go back the website. How would I know about the retraction? 2) Changes to the text can require another round of review (possibly adds two months?). 3) Authors are generally against issuing corrections post-publication since the box that's added to the top of the paper looks similar to a retraction [0]. 4) Authors are busy or lazy.
>> Given that no editor or reviewer caught the problem, she said, “I plan to discuss with the staff incorporating such screening into manuscript processing.”
Shouldn't it be the responsibility of the publisher to add a notification to papers that cited a retracted paper? ("Be wary of things relating to ref #32.") We pay Nature Communications (cited in the article) ~$5000 to publish [1]... this should already be done for you.
[0] e.g., this PNAS paper: https://www.pnas.org/content/116/32/15877. Why not make the retraction notification a bright red box?
[1] https://www.nature.com/ncomms/about/article-processing-charg...
Re: Many scientists citing two scandalous Covid-19 papers ignore their retractions
#14So why is not every paper that cites a retracted paper automatically flagged? THe peer reviewing process seems to have a lot of room for improvement.
Citing a paper doesn't imply you think it's either good or bad. You have to read the text to understand what the authors say about it.
Re: Many scientists citing two scandalous Covid-19 papers ignore their retractions
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why don't you talk about the 10 points that the scientists state to argue that the test is flawed? And what do you have to say about the other 21 scientists? What do you have to say about the former Pfizer chief scientist which is co-author?
Here's a fairly exhaustive rebuttal: https://mobile.twitter.com/BMauschen/status/1333466298072911... I'll leave the translation up to the readers. That former Pfizer guy apparently claimed in October that the coronavirus pandemic is “effectively over” in the United Kingdom. Clearly a man with special insights. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/dec/02/blog-posti...
Autotranlation for the lazy: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=&sl=auto&tl=en&u=h...
(For the lazier, the technical discussion starts at the 12th tweet.)
Re: Many scientists citing two scandalous Covid-19 papers ignore their retractions
#16So why is not every paper that cites a retracted paper automatically flagged? THe peer reviewing process seems to have a lot of room for improvement.
Citing a paper doesn't imply you think it's either good or bad. You have to read the text to understand what the authors say about it.
editors and peer reviewers really need to do a better job flagging citations of retracted papers...
Re: Many scientists citing two scandalous Covid-19 papers ignore their retractions
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
Citing a paper doesn't imply you think it's either good or bad. You have to read the text to understand what the authors say about it.
editors and peer reviewers really need to do a better job flagging citations of retracted papers...
Again, the issue is not the citation... it's what the citation is used to do. If an historian cites Mein Kampf it's not because they're agreeing with it, is it?
Re: Many scientists citing two scandalous Covid-19 papers ignore their retractions
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
editors and peer reviewers really need to do a better job flagging citations of retracted papers...
Again, the issue is not the citation... it's what the citation is used to do. If an historian cites Mein Kampf it's not because they're agreeing with it, is it?
If a historian cites Mein Kampf, they're using it as a primary source - they might not agree with the opinions expressed within but they do believe Hitler expressed those opinions.
If a historian cited a work that turned out to be a forgery, and did not acknowledge in their paper that it was a forgery, then their paper would certainly be suspect. True citing a retracted paper is not automatically 100% unacceptable, but it is something that should automatically demand further scrutiny.
Re: Many scientists citing two scandalous Covid-19 papers ignore their retractions
#19>> A lead author of the paper, biomathematician Maik Pietzner at the University of Cambridge, said that although the paper was submitted after the retractions occurred, it was written beforehand, and “the current pandemic requires immediate response.” However, the paper was published 4 months after its submission. Particularly during the pandemic, the peer review / publishing process has become so slow in some cases…
Zotero, a Free citation manager will tell you when a paper is retracted. it will also tell you (with a plugin this time) if it is discussed on pubpeer.
Re: Many scientists citing two scandalous Covid-19 papers ignore their retractions
#20So why is not every paper that cites a retracted paper automatically flagged? THe peer reviewing process seems to have a lot of room for improvement.
Citing a paper doesn't imply you think it's either good or bad. You have to read the text to understand what the authors say about it.
flagging doesnt mean forbidding, just a warning to make sure everybody is aware.