NPR – National Public Radio (http://www.npr.org/) – has done it again. My main source of news I can trust, NPR recently highlighted a blog that follows retractions published by scientific journals. It is called Retraction Watch (http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com).
The goal of the two blog owners … Adam Marcus, managing editor of Anesthesiology News and Ivan Oransky, the executive editor of Reuters Health, is to make it easy to find retractions pertaining to scientific articles. They describe their mission in their first post, an excerpt of which appears below …
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So why write a blog on retractions?
First, science takes justifiable pride in the fact that it is self-correcting — most of the time. Usually, that just means more or better data, not fraud or mistakes that would require a retraction. But when a retraction is necessary, how long does that self-correction take? The Wakefield retraction, for example, was issued 12 years after the original study, and six years after serious questions had been raised publicly by journalist Andrew Brian Deer. (Thanks to commenter Tutak for letting us know about this error.) Retractions are therefore a window into the scientific process.
Second, retractions are not often well-publicized. Sure, there are the high-profile cases such as Reuben’s and Wakefield’s. But most retractions live in obscurity in Medline and other databases. That means those who funded the retracted research — often taxpayers — aren’t particularly likely to find out about them. Nor are investors always likely to hear about retractions on basic science papers whose findings may have formed the basis for companies into which they pour dollars. So we hope this blog will form an informal repository for the retractions we find, and might even spur the creation of a retraction database such as the one called for here by K.M Korpela.
Third, they’re often the clues to great stories about fraud or other malfeasance, as Adam learned when he chased down the Reuben story. The reverse can also be true. The Cancer Letter’s expose of Potti and his fake Rhodes Scholarship is what led his co-authors to remind The Lancet Oncology of their concerns, and then the editors to issue their expression of concern. And they can even lead to lawsuits for damaged reputations. If highlighting retractions will give journalists more tools to uncover fraud and misuse of funds, we’re happy to help. And if those stories are appropriate for our respective news outlets, you’ll only read about them on Retraction Watch once we’ve covered them there.
Finally, we’re interested in whether journals are consistent. How long do they wait before printing a retraction? What requires one? How much of a public announcement, if any, do they make? Does a journal with a low rate of retractions have a better peer review and editing process, or is it just sweeping more mistakes under the rug?
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I recommend a bookmark for this blog, maybe even a “follow.” Why? Because you never know. When your research depends, in part, on published work in your field, it makes sense to be sure none of the articles, or some of the data presented in them, has been retracted.
Just for a quick example, search the blog using key word: "oil." Result …
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Did a NOAA scientist “retract” an overoptimistic oil spill report?
Yesterday, on a story about a Congressional hearing on the progress of oil spill cleanup in the Gulf of Mexico, the Guardian ran the following headline:
BP oil spill: US scientist retracts assurances over success of cleanup
NOAA’s Bill Lehr says three-quarters of the oil that gushed from the Deepwater Horizon rig is still in the Gulf environment while scientists identify 22-mile plume in ocean depths
The story, as do those in the Los Angeles Times, The Hill, and the New Orleans Times-Picayune, among others, point out that Lehr’s testimony seemed at odds with the almost celebratory atmosphere surrounding the release of a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) report two weeks ago, “BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Budget: What Happened To the Oil?”
The coverage yesterday also noted that other scientists have criticized the report, and that a study in Science this week suggests there’s still an underwater plume of oil in the Gulf.
But did Lehr actually “retract” assurances over the cleanup’s success, or the report itself?
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The blog enables searching posts by author, country, journal, subject, and type
Add it to your “due diligence” list.
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A feed of the Desulfurization Blog (www.desulf.blogspot.com) makes an excellent addition to your organization’s Web. And the price is right … it’s free!
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