A blog about science integrity, by Elisabeth Bik, for Harbers-Bik LLC. Support my work at Patreon.com/elisabethbik
A reader pointed out a 2016 paper published in Dermatologic Surgery.
Daily Use of a Facial Broad Spectrum Sunscreen Over One-Year Significantly Improves Clinical Evaluation of Photoaging – M. Randhawa et al. – Dermatologic Surgery: December 2016 – doi: 10.1097/DSS.0000000000000879
One of my recent investigations led me to expand my set of figure types to look at. For our 2016 mBio study, in which I scanned >20,000 papers for image duplication, I focused on real photos of Western blots, agarose gels, tissue sections, etc.
A short post based on a Twitter thread I wrote today about a paper I had seen a while ago. You can also read the ThreadReaderApp post, which many people find easier to read.
A couple of weesk ago, I saw a social media post claiming that the HPV vaccine would cause infertility in women, based on results in a peer-reviewed paper. It sounded hard to believe, because many other studies have found that the HPV vaccine is safe to use. There was no time that day to look up the details and I let it go.
Continue reading “Concerns about a paper on HPV vaccination and pregnancy rates”Some interesting articles I came across in the past couple of weeks.
How a data detective exposed suspicious medical trials – David Adam – Nature
Anaesthetist John Carlisle has spotted problems in hundreds of research papers — and spurred a leading medical journal to change its practice.
‘Bad science’: Australian studies found to be unreliable, compromised – Liam Mannix – The Age
Hundreds of scientific research papers published by Australian scientists have been found to be unreliable or compromised, fuelling calls for a national science watchdog. For the first time, a team of science writers behind Retraction Watch has put together a database of compromised scientific research in Australia.
This post is based on a Twitter thread from April 2019, with some additional information. I have added some of my own reports and some UnSplash stock photos for illustrations.
I got several questions from other scientists who were interested learning how to report suspected misconduct or other irregularities in scientific papers. In this post, I will discuss how to do that.
Continue reading “How to report misconduct to a journal”One of the most discussed case of fabricated data comes from the Netherlands. Diederik Stapel was a professor of Social Psychology at Tilburg University and the University of Groningen. Some of his research was featured on news sites, such as his Science paper that found that people discriminate more in messy environments or another (unpublished) study that thinking about meat made people less social.
Continue reading “Fabrication: The Diederik Stapel case”
If you are interested in scientific integrity, you will probably know PubPeer, a website where you can leave anonymous or signed comments on scientific papers.
PubPeer was launched in late 2012 by neuroscientist Brendon Stell and brothers Richard and George Smith, with Boris Barbour and Gabor Brasnjo acting as advisers. At the start, the founders and advisers were anonymous, but they revealed their identity in 2015.
Continue reading “PubPeer – a website to comment on scientific papers”Unfortunately, several angry Twitter users pointed out it was insensitive of me and irrelevant to mention the country where the Human Photosynthesis Study Center scientists are located. I am confused about this, but I do not want to be insensitive. It appears it is OK to mention most countries but not certain others. I will just try to continue to be an equal-opportunity science integrity detective.
Yesterday, Twitter user @Arroboso pointed out research on “Human Photosynthesis” through this tweet.
Of course I was curious. Last time I checked, humans are not capable of photosynthesis. Instead, I learned that humans are heterotrophs, organisms that rely on eating other organism to get their energy from.
Continue reading “Human Photosynthesis”Note: this post is not an allegation of misconduct. I do not have any strong feelings about low- or high-carb diets.
This post tells the tale of three papers. Paper #1 was retracted, republished as paper #2, and republished a second time as paper #3. Let’s take a look at what happened. Based on an original Twitter thread on Twitter and on ThreadReaderApp.
Continue reading “Three diets, three papers, one retraction, and lots of concerns”One of the best-known examples of data falsification is a study described in a 1998 Lancet paper with Dr. Andrew Wakefield as the lead author. In this paper, 12 children with autism and chronic enterocolitis were described, and these symptoms started immediately after MMR (Measles / Mumps / Rubella) vaccination in 8 of these children.
However, a 2004 investigation by Sunday Times reporter Brian Deer revealed concerning issues with patient recruitment and undisclosed financial conflicts of interest.
Continue reading “Falsification: The Andrew Wakefield case”
Science Integrity Digest 