Medical journal retractions on the rise

[Zizzle]

It's a sad state of affairs, the number of retractions in peer-reviewed journals has risen 15-fold over the past decade, from 22 in 2001 to 339 last year, and we are poised to exceed that figure this year. What's worse is that retractions don't mean the articles get pulled from journal archives, so people can still read them assuming they are free of fraud. Here's a website that follows all the retractions, many of which happen years after they are published (and after patients have probably suffered as a result of bad science).

On the right there is a drop-down menu that lists number of retraction posts by author, country, journal, subject, and type. The US leads other countries with 66 retraction posts, while Duke and Harvard lead in institutions. Luckily there don't appear to be any new ones in gastroenterology.


http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com/

[MBombardier]

Wow...

[tex]

Luckily there don't appear to be any new ones in gastroenterology.

That's almost surely due to the "Good Old Boys Club". Those guys stick together, so that they never have to worry about being pressured to retract anything.

I'm sure that no one will be surprised if I mention that I'm not surprised that retractions are on the rise. The quality of most research articles has been declining steadily for many years. It's the reason why you can pick out virtually any research article at random, these days, and point out that at least some, (and probably most), of the conclusions stated by the authors are incorrect, and you will automatically be correct, most of the time, (simply because it's a proven fact that on the average, most research articles contain errors. It's a pathetic state of affairs. The author of the article at the following link, John Ioannidis, has made a career of proving the inaccuracy of most research articles.

There is increasing concern that most current published research findings are false. The probability that a research claim is true may depend on study power and bias, the number of other studies on the same question, and, importantly, the ratio of true to no relationships among the relationships probed in each scientific field. In this framework, a research finding is less likely to be true when the studies conducted in a field are smaller; when effect sizes are smaller; when there is a greater number and lesser preselection of tested relationships; where there is greater flexibility in designs, definitions, outcomes, and analytical modes; when there is greater financial and other interest and prejudice; and when more teams are involved in a scientific field in chase of statistical significance. Simulations show that for most study designs and settings, it is more likely for a research claim to be false than true. Moreover, for many current scientific fields, claimed research findings may often be simply accurate measures of the prevailing bias. In this essay, I discuss the implications of these problems for the conduct and interpretation of research.

The red emphasis is mine, of course.

http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/inf ... ed.0020124

Thanks for the link.

Tex

[Gabes-Apg]

I am not surprised, with the expansion of readership thanks to the WWW, there are alot more people questioning results.

i wonder if the rate of retratctions is about the same as the increasing rate of incompetant specialists????

[sarkin]

Ioannidis is another hero of mine.

It is really creepy that medical journals use 'dirty tricks' types of disinformation, the way political sleazeballs do. Put the bogus word out, then later retract it.

No surprise, but disgusting nonetheless.