Higher scrutiny of COVID-19 research likely causing more retractions, but not for misconduct

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2022-10-05 02:00

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Higher scrutiny of COVID-19 research is likely causing more retractions, but it's not for misconduct according to an international review of retracted research between February 2020 and May 2022. The review found that retracted COVID-19 studies had more experienced first and last authors, and were more likely to be retracted for non-misconduct-related concerns. The researchers say this may suggest that COVID-19 studies are subject to a greater level of external scrutiny than non–COVID-19 studies. COVID-19 stories were also more likely to be retracted within six months of publication or posting, compared with non-COVID-19 stories.

News release

From:

Journal/
conference: JAMA Network Open

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: Yale School of Public Health, USA

Funder: Ms Shi reported grant funding by the China Scholarship Council and the Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences outside the submitted work. Dr Abritis reported employment with The Center For Scientific Integrity, which developed and maintains the RetractionWatch Database. Dr Oransky reported voluntary service as executive director of The Center For Scientific Integrity, a nonprofit organization which is funded through database licensing fees, a subcontract from the University of Illinois on a Howard Hughes Medical Institute grant, and donations from individuals. Dr Ross reported service as cofounder of medRxiv, former Associate Editor of JAMA Internal Medicine, and current Research Editor at BMJ; he reported receiving research support through Yale University from Johnson and Johnson to develop methods of clinical trial data sharing, from the Medical Device Innovation Consortium as part of the National Evaluation System for Health Technology, the US Food and Drug Administration for the Yale-Mayo Clinic Center for Excellence in Regulatory Science and Innovation program (grant No. U01FD005938), the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (grant No. R01HS022882), the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health (R01HS025164, R01HL144644), and the Laura and John Arnold Foundation to establish the Good Pharma Scorecard at Bioethics International outside the submitted work; in addition, Dr Ross reported serving as an expert witness in a qui tam suit alleging violations of the False Claims Act and Anti-Kickback Statute against Biogen Inc. DrWallach reported receiving grant support by the US Food and Drug Administration, Arnold Ventures, Johnson & Johnson through Yale University, and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism of the National Institutes of Health under award No. 1K01AA028258; he reported serving as a consultant for Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP and Dugan Law Firm APLC.

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