Mistakes happen — in life, in the lab, and, inevitably, in research papers, too. Journals use corrections and retractions to resolve those mistakes. But one particularly high-profile case is now drawing fresh attention to the problems with journals’ process for addressing concerns about research integrity.
Even amongst experienced, careful and ethical researchers, mistakes happen. Even when researchers identify the problem themselves and promptly alert the publisher, journals can take years to take appropriate action. Like institutions when one of its researchers is found to have committed research misconduct, publishers have structural and deep conflicts of interest. A positive and unblemished reputation correlates to more subscriptions and more advertising/sponsorship dollars. Publicly retracting a paper, or even admitting it has problems, can damage that reputation. As such, there is an incentive for publishers to move slowly. This piece published in Stat looks at this unsatisfactory state of affairs.
But in some cases — the Cell paper and the two studies that appear in Science — the journals were actually alerted to the issues years ago by Tessier-Lavigne himself. The journals never posted corrections. Cell said that after Tessier-Lavigne reached out with concerns about the images in 2015, the journal’s editors decided at the time that no action was needed. Science, meanwhile, didn’t follow through “due to an error,” as Holden Thorp, editor-in-chief of the Science family of journals, said in a statement.
