
Springer retracting 107 papers published in Tumor Biology with fake peer reviews - mathgenius
http://retractionwatch.com/2017/04/20/new-record-major-publisher-retracting-100-studies-cancer-journal-fake-peer-reviews/
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kem
I'm an editor at a journal, and these fake review cases have one thing in
common, which is that the journal is using author suggestions for reviewers to
solicit reviews.

For those unfamiliar with the practice, this is common, and seems to becoming
more standard at many journals, even (especially?) very reputable ones.

I almost always ignore the reviewer's requests for particular authors, because
it always seems to involve a conflict of interest. I am sensitive to requests
for a particular author not to review a paper, because of vindictiveness in
academics, but requesting reviewers is a different story.

I've seen significant changes in this practice over time. Originally it seemed
unusual, almost an option of last resort to cue the editor to bitter feuds or
to help identify reviewers in areas that involve highly idiosyncratic issues.
At a lot of journals this is still the case. Over time, though, it's seemed to
turn into something different, a stopgap measure for overburdened,
unconscientious, or harried editors to find increasingly scarce reviewers.

A lot of attention has been paid to the pressures on researchers to publish or
perish, quality be damned, and how that affects science. The flip side of that
coin, though, is changes in editorial practices at many journals, which have
become very cursory, rubber-stamping affairs. Turnaround time on papers is
very quick at many journals, which gives authors quick feedback, but at the
same time (not necessarily as a result) the review process has become shoddy.
Editors are often unfamiliar with the subject material and don't take time to
learn it, will grasp at reviewers who might be unqualified or have conflicts
of interest, and treat reviews very superficially, even though studies have
shown that they are horribly unreliable. To be fair, even finding reviewers
can be difficult: I've had conversations with colleagues who have been told
not to review because it doesn't bring in revenue to the department. Everyone
wants to publish, but not everyone wants to review.

Things are broken in science at the moment, at least in academics. Publishing
through peer review has become extremely overvalued. I think it will maintain
its place for certain reasons, but some change in mindset or culture around it
is necessary.

~~~
michaelhoffman
It's one thing to take author suggestions for peer reviewers--it's another
thing altogether to use the contact details they supply also. Especially when
they supply a gmail address for someone who should have a institutional
affiliation. It's like calling the number left in a voicemail rather than the
one on your bank's web site.

~~~
fabian2k
I still find it almost unbelievable that supplying fake addresses for
reviewers worked as often as it did in this case. One suspicion I had when
reading about this was that maybe there is something particular to how the
software works this journal used to manage reviews. Maybe it made it
especially easy to just use the mail addresses the authors provided and send
automatic mails, or maybe it hid the actual address by default.

Otherwise my only explanation would be that the editors simply didn't care at
all.

~~~
michaelhoffman
Many manuscript management systems I've used ask for email address for the
suggested reviewers. It's a really bad idea. The editor should do at least
minimal checking of the reviewer's position and expertise, and having an email
ready to go in the system facilitates skipping that.

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pvaldes
Society put almost impossible obstables to scientists just for fun -> Society
ends keeping a bigger percentage of liars than necessary, because who can lie
convincingly can navigate the artificial walls and tests, and pass.

If you require people with twelve real superpowers in your job offer, you will
end hiring a liar in tighs.

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jMyles
Wow, that's bonkers.

I wonder if any of these papers has definitely convinced a decision-maker to
pursue or avoid a particular course of treatment. IE, has someone literally
died because of this?

It seems likely, but these papers are only a year or two old.

In any case, this kind of happening is why it's difficult anymore to see "peer
review" as being tantamount to a verification that a conclusion was reached
via rigorous science.

Moreover, it's what makes many people who _do_ care about science wonder if
"modern medicine" is really first-and-foremost science-based any more. There
seems to be an awful lot of armchair BS making it through this process.

~~~
fabian2k
From a quick glance at the list of papers this seems to be mostly basic
research. This makes it less likely that it could have affected treatment
decisions.

The formal peer review during publication is a very coarse filter, and not
well suited to catch outright fraud. It's more of a quick sanity check than an
in depth examination. The real verification happens once other scientists
build on that paper and perform new experiments.

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culturalzero
It's weird, and hate to be that guy, but is it significant that all of the
people who did this appear to be Chinese? Springer lists all of the articles
and authors.

~~~
goodcanadian
Possibly. From the economist
([http://www.economist.com/news/china/21586845-flawed-
system-j...](http://www.economist.com/news/china/21586845-flawed-system-
judging-research-leading-academic-fraud-looks-good-paper) [2013]):

 _As China tries to take its seat at the top table of global academia, the
criminal underworld has seized on a feature in its research system: the fact
that research grants and promotions are awarded on the basis of the number of
articles published, not on the quality of the original research._

To be clear, there are plenty of high quality Chinese academics writing high
quality papers, and I read somewhere that the Chinese government is well aware
of the problem with fake journals and trying to address it, but it looks like
the Chinese scientific community has even bigger problems of perverse
incentives than elsewhere in the world.

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hueving
It takes a special kind of sociopath to fake research on something with such
potentially massive life/death consequences. This could have caused doctors to
avoid a treatment; or, even worse in the grand scheme of things, prevented
another researcher from entering into an area and making a big breakthrough.

~~~
jakobegger
It's important to note that this is about fake reviews; not necessarily "fake
research". There is an important difference. Fake research (eg. people
fabricating measurements) often passes real peer review and is a different
problem.

The authors committing review fraud probably are not trying to publish
fabricated research; it's more likely they were attempting to make it more
likely that their research is published.

Most articles are not rejected by reviewers because the research is "wrong";
rather because they are not significant enough, or other papers are better.

~~~
adolph
Where there is a whiff of smoke we often look for fire, no? Without a deep
dive into a statistically significant amount of the research how could you say
that those papers were probably not fabricated?

It seems that part of the publishing apparatus discovered this flaw as the
journal was undergoing a shift in publication models. In that all parties have
an interest in the ongoing viability and prestige of the journal, and most
often institutions respond to scandals by either coverup or diminishment, who
benefits from the news and which party wants to contain the scandal to the
review process only?

~~~
pizza_boy
There may be an intersection between fabricated research and fraudulently
reviewed research but I understand that at least some of the papers retracted
for reviewer fraud could have been published legitimately.

Grandparent has it right. This is all about the pressure on authors to
publish, and publish quickly.

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netvarun
For those wondering - here are the list of the papers being retracted:
[https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13277-017-5487-6](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13277-017-5487-6)

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raverbashing
Is this why we need "pay to publish" and also "pay to read"?

~~~
sevensor
"Pay to publish" is something you don't see a lot of, outside of predatory
journals. "Pay to read" does absolutely nothing to address this problem --
that money goes straight to the publisher and neither the reviewers nor the
editor ever sees a dime. To reiterate, reviewers and editors are not paid in
any way for their efforts.

~~~
new299
Pay to publish is not that uncommon e.g.

[https://academic.oup.com/nar/pages/Ms_Prep_Submission#charge...](https://academic.oup.com/nar/pages/Ms_Prep_Submission#charges)

Sometimes this is under the guise of "open access" or other charges... there
is often a waver if the author can not afford the fee (which you have to apply
for).

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DanCarvajal
Trust Science.

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fil_a_del_fee_a
This may be downvoted to hell, but stuff like this makes me question things
like vaccinating children.

I am positive that hundreds of studies were conducted and "peer reviewed" to
ensure that they were safe. And I am sure that the drug companies producing
vaccines have 0 conflict of interest with the anti "fake-news" saying that
"anti-vaxxers" are nuts. /s

~~~
rsfern
I think you're being too quick to throw out the baby with the bath water. We
know there are epidemiological risks to foregoing vaccination, dating to well
before peer review and drug manufacturer incentives were problematic.

If you're concerned about the incentives of vaccine manufacturers to produce
safe products (which is a reasonable position), I think a better response in
this case is to call for more transparency in research and manufacturing.

Why accept a known large risk in an attempt to reduce a risk that may not
exist at all?

