Cruel animal models – Science Integrity Digest

A Dermatology journal issue that might make your skin crawl

A group of authors has found a way to crank up the number of papers on their resumes. The complete “Global Dermatology” September 30, 2019 issue of the Open Access Macedonian Journal of Medical Sciences is filled with papers from the same group of authors, headed by Torello Lotti and Massimo Fioranelli, both from the University of G. Marconi in Rome, Italy.

Some of these papers contain photos of patients without consent, others contain duplicated images, and some papers are full of extraordinary claims without any evidence. Just a bunch of pretty diagrams.

Animal ethics misconduct: mice with very large tumors

In the past few years I have found some examples of papers showing photos of mice or rats with very large tumors. Some of these tumors appear to go far beyond what animal ethics guidelines consider to be acceptable.

This post contains images that might be disturbing to some viewers. So, please proceed with caution.

Gasping for air: 18 papers from Sichuan University and UCSF

This blog post is not an accusation of misconduct, and reflects my personal opinion.

Happy New Year! I started 2020 by scanning a set of papers from researchers at the Department of Pediatrics, West China Second University Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, with a connection to the University of California in San Francisco (UCSF). These researchers use a pretty cruel baby rat model to investigate the effect of oxygen deprivation on the developing brain. I found that one out of five papers from this group appears to have image problems.

An astrophysicist who decapitates birds and wants to infect pregnant women with viruses

Note: this post has been updated on June 4, to include new information that the author was not affiliated with the RIAAM institute at the time of publishing his papers. The RIAAM takes this false affiliation very seriously and distances itself from the author’s views and ideas.

This blog post – again – is based on a Twitter thread (here is the unroll if you like that better). It is about a nuclear physicist who ~~works~~ has previously worked at the Research Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics of Maragha (RIAAM) in Iran.

Depressed rats

A blog post about a cruel, seemingly unnecessary animal model. Compiled from a Twitter thread I did on May 17, 2019. Intended to make you feel uncomfortable. I am so sorry.

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