‘We badly need to change processes’: How ‘slow, opaque and inconsistent’ journals’ responses to misconduct can be, Nov 2019, Retraction Watch

[ladycatlover]

‘We badly need to change processes’: How ‘slow, opaque and inconsistent’ journals’ responses to misconduct can be.

Two researchers from Japan — Jun Iwamoto and the late Yoshihiro Sato — have slowly crept up our leaderboard of retractions to positions 3 and 4. They have that dubious distinction because a group of researchers from the University of Auckland the University of Aberdeen, who have spent years analyzing the work. As their efforts continue, those researchers have been analyzing how journals respond to allegations, and what effect Sato and Iwamoto’s misconduct has had on the clinical literature. We asked three of the common authors of two recently published papers to answer some questions.

 

[Snowdrop]

More from the text:

When we first submitted our concerns about the 33 trial reports to JAMA in March 2013, we were naively hopeful that retractions would quite quickly follow. We soon learnt otherwise. Journals were, and are, extremely reluctant to even publish expressions of concern – JAMA didn’t do so for more than 2 years, and even when they did, the formal notice provided journal readers with no useful information about the case. We know that there are many long-term investigations underway, including other cases we are involved with, where no expressions of concern have been published after more than 3 years. Our situation is not unique, long delays, running into years, in posting expressions of concern and retractions seem to be the rule. Even when we have been told that a retraction will occur it can take months for the notice to appear online.

Long delays in decision making and action have led us to think that the assessment of publication integrity should be the sole concern of publishers and journals, who should not await the determination of misconduct before they act. We need better mechanisms for the efficient assessment of publication integrity.

 

[Snowdrop]

Could it be that the real people behind the problem find it easy to hide by being identified as the journal?
Repeatedly we hear the journal failed to respond. Well who is the journal exactly? There is reluctance to call out the real individual people who protect the system status quo which is so far corrupted now it'll be a long road back to publication integrity.