Australian Doctor 13th Sept Issue | Page 41

41 return of the zombies
Get started now and search hundreds of jobs
ausdoc . com . au 13 SEPTEMBER 2024

41 return of the zombies

without the retraction notice , can still be accessed through the author ’ s ResearchGate profile .
Pay-to-publish
It is worth mentioning that retractionwatch . com — perhaps home to the biggest menagerie of zombie papers in the world — now lists over 430 retracted COVID- 19 papers , ranging from whether noise from banging utensils together can kill coronavirus to large RCTs using hydroxychloroquine as a treatment .
The problem spans the globe , though many zombie papers seem to emerge from China , Iran , India and Pakistan .
Their rise is primarily a product of academic pressure : the competition for jobs and promotions when resources to conduct
There is also usually radio silence from offending authors . Australian Doctor ’ s attempt to contact Dr Elgazzar for this article failed , for instance .
It seems most authors ignore allegations until the incident fades from public memory .
Laziness
According to Professor Mol , zombie hunting is not hard . The data discrepancies are relatively easy to pick up .
That said , he is reluctant to dish out the secrets , lest the ‘ zombies ’ find a way around his net .
“ The thing is that researchers who are fabricating data are lazy ,” he says .
“ If they were not lazy , they would do the actual research . But since they are lazy , they will
So what happened to ivermectin as a COVID-19 wonder drug ?
Dr Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz ( PhD ) is an epidemiologist at the University of Wollongong in NSW who played a leading role in exposing the flaws in ivermectin research .
The drug became so popular as a potential treatment option during the pandemic that the TGA banned its prescription outside its indicated use — scabies and other parasitical infections . What is the general consensus now on the treatment ? “ We now have a group of large , independently funded studies that have failed to find a benefit for the drug ,” he says .
“ We can say with a great deal of certainty that ivermectin does not work as a treatment for COVID-19 .
“ There still hasn ’ t been much good research on the drug as a prophylactic , but given the complete failure to find any results as a treatment , any benefit for prophylaxis is unlikely .”
You can read his blog on the topic here : bit . ly / 3AoxXFu
quality research are restricted .
always make mistakes .”
But what has made the envi-
In some cases , detection
ronment worse , according to
involves arranging a dataset in
Integrity in Guidelines and Evi-
researchers and publishers to
Professor Mol , is the advent of
ascending or descending order
dence Synthesis Framework .
improve understanding of the
the ‘ pay-to-publish ’ model in
on an Excel spreadsheet to reveal
It recommends an expert com-
papers ’ origin .
research , amid demands for
any repeating patterns .
mittee assign integrity scores
“ It is like a river being pol-
research to be open access .
“ For example , you might
to research papers selected for
luted at the source , but we are
Without revenue coming
end up realising that too many
inclusion in meta-analyses or
trying to clean it up halfway
linked to the creation of paywalls ,
patients in a dataset have the
guidelines .
downstream — we need to stop
publishers turn to the authors as
exact same BMI , age and birth-
An attempt is then made to
the pollution at the source ,” he
an alternative source .
weight combination .
contact authors of questionable
says .
“ With publishers now being
“ Or sections of the tables may
RCTs to gain more information .
“ Facebook and TikTok are
paid a fee for open access , they
have simply been copied from
The committee then makes a
now being held responsible for
are less likely to reject papers in
one section to another .”
call on which papers to leave out .
their content , even though it is
some pockets of social media .
peer review . “ Publishers
are
accountable
for what they publish , and jour-
The solution
Improved peer review could pre-
Professor Mol also recommends actively escalating matters with the journals concerned
user-generated . “ The same principle must be applied to journal publishers .”
The Egyptian paper was subsequently retracted over concerns of plagiarism and revelations that the raw data did not support the conclusions drawn .
However , the original paper ,
nalists should be holding them to account ,” Professor Mol declares .
Research integrity sleuths also point out that journals , even when informed of dodgy practice , often take decades to retract papers .
vent studies ever becoming part of the living dead , but the issue is big , and most regulators are yet to acknowledge the problem .
His team ’ s solution is something called the Research
where there are serious questions — so that such papers may be retracted and removed from circulation .
There also needs to be more active engagement with
References :
• Monash University : PCOS guideline ( 2023 ) bit . ly / 3yELCrw
• EClinicalMedicine 2024 ; 16 Jul .
• Res Sq 2021 ; 14 Jul .

NEW

a better way to build the career you want

Simplify your job search with the new AusDoc Medical JOBS platform .
Why use AusDoc Medical JOBS in your search strategy ?
1 . Hundreds of great roles advertised 2 . Built specifically for GPs by AusDoc , Australia ’ s # 1 GP medical publication 3 . Simple and highly relevant job search process 4 . Resume templates and interview preparation tools 5 . Easy to set up job alerts so you never miss out on seeing the jobs you want 6 . Simplified application process using your AusDoc profile

Get started now and search hundreds of jobs