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Research Has a “Trash Island.” Some Are Trying to Clean it Up – Proto (Stephen Ornes | May 2022)

Posted by Dr Gary Allen in on June 23, 2022

The Linked Original Item was Posted On May 27, 2022

Ecology team working on landfill site collecting toxic garbage and estimating pollution. Close-up caucasian ecologist writing down notes standing near garbage rocks. Pollution concept.
Bad science can do lasting damage. A study falsely connecting COVID-19 to 5G wireless technology, for instance, was quickly retracted for its sloppy methods and unearned conclusions, though not before causing a wave of conspiracy theories. This past March, a controversial 2017 study suggesting sepsis could be treated with vitamin C—a sign of hope in the battle against the leading cause of death in hospitals—was alleged to be based on fraudulent data, not the first time its findings had been challenged.

Questionable publishers, paper mills and research misconduct are polluting the academic record with crazy unsubstantiated claims and fraudulent research.  The damage is far wider than individual projects and outputs, they fuel conspiracy theories and snake-oil cures, undermine scientific understanding and damage public faith in science.  This piece looks at the problem and the drive to clean up the problem.

Yet other studies go beyond bad data and are wholly fraudulent from their inception. A curious subset of these are scientific papers that are generated by computer programs. Custom algorithms can contribute sections or even spin up whole papers by splicing together likely-sounding phrases or linguistically twisting already-published results. Such papers get printed, even by reputable publishers, and while many of these papers have been retracted, some are still being cited in the scientific literature years after their retraction. The idea of a computer-generated paper was originally pioneered as a prank—intended to expose duplicitous practices in the publishing world—but the technology is now sometimes used to pad resumes of those desperate to publish. The end result is a veritable trash island of papers that clog research databases and, occasionally, get published and cited.

While this has been a problem for some time, the COVID-19 pandemic made garbage research especially difficult—and especially vital—to ferret out. The onset of the health crisis unleashed a flood of desperately needed studies, with one analysis finding that between February and May 2020, the number of papers submitted to health and medicine journals published by Elsevier, a leading publisher of scientific research, 63% higher than a year earlier. The growing volume of published studies across the globe—some 2.9 million science and engineering studies in 2020 alone—calls for an effort to clean house.

Research Has a “Trash Island.” Some Are Trying to Clean it Up.
Computer-generated nonsense studies and other fake papers find their way into the scientific literature all too often. A few crusading researchers are fighting back.

Related Reading

(Brazil) Covid-19: Trial of experimental “covid cure” is among worst medical ethics violations in Brazil’s history, says regulator – BMJ (Luke Taylor | November 2021)

(US) Strengthening scientific integrity – Science (Alondra Nelson and Jane Lubchenco | January 2021)

How bad research clouded our understanding of Covid-19 – Vox (Kelsey Piper | December 2021)

Ongoing Citations of a Retracted Study Involving Cardiovascular Disease, Drug Therapy, and Mortality in COVID-19 (Letters; Todd C. Lee, MD, et al | August 2021)

2021: A review of the year’s 3,200 retractions – Retraction Watch (Ivan Oransky | December 2021)

‘Science is flawed’: COVID-19, ivermectin, and beyond – Medical News Today (Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz | December 2021)

(Peru) Scandal over COVID vaccine trial at Peruvian universities prompts outrage – Nature (Luke Taylor | March 2021)

Changes in the Scientific Information Environment During the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Importance of Scientific Situational Awareness in Responding to the Infodemic – Mary Ann Liebert, Inc (John K. Iskander | December 2020)

Research on covid-19 is suffering “imperfect incentives at every stage” (Papers: Stephen Armstrong | May 2020)

The Strange and Twisted Tale of Hydroxychloroquine – WIRED (Adam Rogers | November 2020)

(France) French professor faces disciplinary case over hydroxychloroquine claims – The Guardian (November 2020)

The carnage of substandard research during the COVID-19 pandemic: a call for quality (Papers: Katrina A Bramstedt | October 2020)

The Surgisphere Scandal: What Went Wrong? – The Scientist (Catherine Offord | October 2020)

(UK) Study: Hydroxychloroquine had no benefit for hospitalized Covid-19 patients, possibly closing door to use of drug – STAT News (Matthew Herper | June 2020)

Despite its big COVID moment, science is in crisis – Crickey (Stephen Bartos | August 2020)

(EU) French hydroxychloroquine study has “major methodological shortcomings” and is “fully irresponsible,” says review, but is not being retracted – Retraction Watch (Ivan Oransky | July 2019)

Questionable publishing practice? Are you harmed?

(Australia and Canada) ‘How I got fooled’: The story behind the retraction of a study of gamers – Retraction Watch (Leto Sapunar | June 2020)

COVID-19 research: pandemic versus “paperdemic”, integrity, values and risks of the “speed science” (Papers: Ricardo Jorge Dinis-Oliveira | April 2020)

Column: How a retracted research paper contaminated global coronavirus research – Los Angles Times (Michael Hiltzik | June 2020)

Fake Science: XMRV, COVID-19, and the Toxic Legacy of Dr. Judy Mikovits (Papers: Stuart J.D. Neil & Edward M. Campbell)

The epic battle against coronavirus misinformation and conspiracy theories – Nature (Philip Ball & Amy Maxmen | May 2020)

(US) FDA revokes emergency use ruling for hydroxychloroquine, the drug touted by Trump as a Covid-19 therapy – STAT (Lev Facher | June 2020)

(France) French hydroxychloroquine-COVID-19 study withdrawn – Retraction Watch (Ivan Oransky | May 2020)

(France) He Was a Science Star. Then He Promoted a Questionable Cure for Covid-19 – New York Times Magazine (Scott Sayare | May 2020)

(Australia) Calls for Australian Defence Force chloroquine COVID-19 drug trial to be halted – ABC News (Grace Tobin | May 2020)

(India) India’s Fight Against Predatory Journals: An Interview with Professor Bhushan Patwardhan – Scholarly Kitchen (Tao Tao | February 2020)

Hydroxychloroquine-COVID-19 study did not meet publishing society’s “expected standard” – Retraction Watch (Adam Marcus | April 2020)

Why India is striking back against predatory journals – Nature (Bhushan Patwardhan | July 2019)

UGC move to thwart ‘pay and publish trash’ culture – Hindustan Times (Rajeev Mullick | June 2019)

We need to talk about systematic fraud – Nature (Jennifer Byrne | February 2019)

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