A project to identify studies doomed by problematic reagents has triggered three more retractions, bringing the total to five.
Jennifer Byrne, a scientist at the University of Sydney, who developed the the idea of double-checking the nucleic acid sequences of research materials – thereby ensuring studies were testing the gene in question — told Retraction Watch that all three retractions came after she started emailing journals in January to alert them to the problems:
“We had a list of 43 papers we’ve been writing emails about. We’ve found more. There are a lot of these papers. In terms of total numbers, conservatively, we’re talking about hundreds…
