Planet Neuroscientists

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OIST Hosts Second International Administration Forum, Welcoming 33 Participants From 18 Universities and CAO

in OIST Japan on 2025-12-09 12:00:00 UTC.

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Professor Grune’s diet of dodgy blots

in For Better Science on 2025-12-09 06:00:00 UTC.

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Insights on suicidality and autism; and more

in The Transmitter on 2025-12-09 05:00:44 UTC.

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2025 Likely to Tie for Second-Hottest Year on Record

Europe’s climate agency said 2025 is likely to be the second or third hottest on record

in Scientific American on 2025-12-09 03:00:00 UTC.

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How to juice your Google Scholar h-index, preprint by preprint

Muhammad Zain Yousaf, a postdoc at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China, became a scholar of note overnight. Or so it would seem, based on his now-defunct Google Scholar profile: From a modest 47 in 2022 and around 100 in 2023, Yousaf’s citations jumped to 629 in 2024. His h-index, a measure combining publication and citation numbers, took off accordingly, reaching levels typical of a senior academic.

But another researcher smelled a rat and took a closer look at Yousaf’s publications. In just two days, Yousaf had uploaded 10 short documents to TechRxiv, a preprint server hosted by the U.S.-based Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, or IEEE. Each of the documents was chock-full of self-citations. In five cases, Yousaf was an author on all 37 papers in the reference list; the rest of the time, his publications made up nearly two-thirds of the reference list.

”Many of these documents appear to be low quality, as evidenced by their lack of coherence and technical quality,” the concerned researcher, who asked to remain anonymous, said of the preprints in an email to TechRxiv last December.

The researcher added that Yousaf’s actions were ”a clear attempt to manipulate citation metrics on external platforms such as Google Scholar” and ”undermine the credibility of TechRxiv as a platform for genuine academic contributions.” 

One year later all of the documents remain on IEEE’s server. “IEEE is aware of the concerns regarding these papers and is investigating,” Francine Tardo, corporate spokesperson for the organization, told us.

Yousaf, an electrical engineer, did not acknowledge our emails laying out the allegations against him and asking for an interview. But on the day we first contacted him, the researcher’s Google Scholar page, which listed his h-index as 21, was taken down; his name on TechRxiv was shortened to “Yousaf” and delinked from his ORCID profile; and the ORCID entry describing his current position at Zhejiang University – “Posdoctrate (Space)” (sic) – disappeared. Several more entries were removed later. A recent paper lists Yousaf’s affiliations as the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Zhejiang University and the Center for Research on Microgrids (CROM) at Huanjiang Laboratory in Zhuji.

Google Scholar has become the go-to source of publication metrics for academics evaluating new job applicants, even at renowned universities in the United States  and England. But the tool is exceedingly easy to game for those looking for a shortcut to impressive numbers – the service will index even non-existent papers cited in preprints – as researchers have shown again and again (and again and again and again). We wrote about a high-profile computer scientist in Spain, Juan Manuel Corchado, who had done just that in 2022. 

To get a better sense of how this tactic inflated the researcher’s h-index, David Robert Grimes, one of Retraction Watch’s Sleuths in Residence, scraped data from Google Scholar on September 10, when Yousaf’s h-index was 19. Excluding self-citations slashed the index to 13, and removing sources with no or minimal peer review, such as preprints and conference proceedings, brought it down to 12. When Grimes excluded both self-citation and sources without peer review, Yousaf’s h-index dropped to 9, a reduction of more than 50 percent. (Yousaf’s h-index according to Scopus, the Elsevier citation database, is 14, up from 13 in November.)

“This is far from the first time somebody has used non-peer-reviewed archives to manipulate Google Scholar,” said Reese Richardson of Northwestern University, who studies scientific fraud. “Google Scholar has made it very clear they don’t intend to fix this. They have known about this for 10 years.”

Google did not respond to requests for comment.

Yasir Zaki, a computer scientist at New York University Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, recently published a study describing different ways Google Scholar metrics can be manipulated. Yousaf’s case, Zaki said, is “in line with what we have seen in the past.” 

”Many of our suspicious authors were uploading documents to either ResearchGate or Authorea,” Zaki told us. “On a related note, arXiv has banned computer-science review papers that have not been published for the exact same reason, because some authors are using this as a way to inflate their citations.”

Zaki said he and his colleagues built a tool using data from OpenAlex to visualize collaboration patterns for specific researchers. The tool shows Yousaf had nearly 130 unique coauthors with whom he collaborated only once, and that in 2025, Yousaf had as many as 120 new unique coauthors – both abnormally high numbers, according to Zaki.

Graham Kendall, a computer scientist and deputy vice chancellor at Mila University in Malaysia who writes frequently about publications ethics, also noted a steep rise in citations in 2025 on Yousaf’s Scopus profile. Such an increase raises “a red flag,” Kendall told us. 

In Richardson’s view, metrics gaming “is going to happen so long as there’s a pressure for citations. The question is, who is going to willingly participate in it? So TechRxiv has decided that they’re going to, Google Scholar has decided that they’re going to.”

Like Retraction Watch? You can make a tax-deductible contribution to support our work, follow us on X or Bluesky, like us on Facebook, follow us on LinkedIn, add us to your RSS reader, or subscribe to our daily digest. If you find a retraction that’s not in our database, you can let us know here. For comments or feedback, email us at team@retractionwatch.com.

in Retraction watch on 2025-12-08 20:07:44 UTC.

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AI Slop Is Spurring Record Requests for Imaginary Journals

The International Committee of the Red Cross warned that artificial intelligence models are making up research papers, journals and archives

in Scientific American on 2025-12-08 18:00:00 UTC.

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Exclusive: Springer Nature retracts, removes nearly 40 publications that trained neural networks on ‘bonkers’ dataset

in The Transmitter on 2025-12-08 17:00:14 UTC.

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Chernobyl’s Shield Guarding Radioactive “Elephant’s Foot” Has Been Damaged for Months

The site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster remains damaged, but so far, radiation levels outside the plant have not increased, according to officials

in Scientific American on 2025-12-08 16:47:00 UTC.

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Watch Lava From Hawaii’s Kilauea Volcano Obliterate a Webcam

Hawaii’s Kilauea, one of Earth’s most active volcanoes, sent lava fountains spewing into the air, obliterating a U.S. Geological Survey camera

in Scientific American on 2025-12-08 16:25:00 UTC.

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Tsunami Warnings Issued in Japan after Magnitude 7.6 Earthquake

Japanese officials said to expect a tsunami of up to 3 meters in some areas after a magnitude 7.6 earthquake struck off the east coast of Japan

in Scientific American on 2025-12-08 16:20:00 UTC.

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Vitamin K Shot Given at Birth Prevents Lethal Brain Bleeds, but More Parents Are Opting Out

Vitamin K injections have prevented deadly brain bleeds in infants for more than 60 years. New research shows refusal rates have recently jumped nearly 80 percent

in Scientific American on 2025-12-08 16:00:00 UTC.

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Rewire Your Career: Emily Cook

in Women in Neuroscience UK on 2025-12-08 15:00:26 UTC.

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GLP-1 drugs failed to slow Alzheimer’s in two big clinical trials

in Science News: Health & Medicine on 2025-12-08 13:30:00 UTC.

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Infrasound Tech Silences Wildfires before They Spread

A new sound-based system could squelch small fires before they grow into home-destroying blazes

in Scientific American on 2025-12-08 11:45:00 UTC.

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Vaccine Controversies and Measles Outbreaks, Space Pollution, Puppy Power

Vaccine controversies, space pollution, and puppy power.

in Scientific American on 2025-12-08 11:00:00 UTC.

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Seeing the world as animals do: How to leverage generative AI for ecological neuroscience

in The Transmitter on 2025-12-08 05:00:35 UTC.

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Death by Fermented Food

Some fermenting foods can carry the risk of a bacterium that produces an extremely strong toxin called bongkrekic acid

in Scientific American on 2025-12-07 08:00:00 UTC.

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Why Are ADHD Rates On the Rise?

More than 1 in 10 children in the U.S. have ADHD, fueling debate over the condition and how to treat it

in Scientific American on 2025-12-06 13:00:00 UTC.

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Free radicals caught in the act with slow spectroscopy

in OIST Japan on 2025-12-06 12:00:00 UTC.

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How Close Are Today’s AI Models to AGI—And to Self-Improving into Superintelligence?

Today’s leading AI models can already write and refine their own software. The question is whether that self-improvement can ever snowball into true superintelligence

in Scientific American on 2025-12-06 12:00:00 UTC.

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Weekend reads: ‘The fall of a prolific science journal’; Clinical trials by ‘super-retractors’; ‘How to Study Things That May Not Exist’

Giving Tuesday was this week, and, like many organizations, we asked for your support. The work we do is funded in part by your donations. If you value our work in rooting out scientific fraud and misconduct, exposing serial offenders, spotlighting how to fix broken systems — and bringing you this newsletter — please consider showing your support with a tax-deductible donation. 

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

• Iraqi journal suspected of coercion, two others dropped from major citation databases
• Authors retract Nature paper projecting high costs of climate change
• The case of the fake references in an ethics journal
• Number of ‘unsafe’ publications by psychologist Hans Eysenck could be ‘high and far reaching‘
• Glyphosate safety article retracted eight years after Monsanto ghostwriting revealed in court
• Nature paper retracted after one investigation finds data errors, another finds no misconduct

Did you know that Retraction Watch and the Retraction Watch Database are  projects of The Center of Scientific Integrity?  Others include the Medical Evidence Project, the Hijacked Journal Checker, and the Sleuths in Residence Program. Help support this work.   

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

• “The fall of a prolific science journal exposes the billion-dollar profits of scientific publishing.”
• “A small number of influential authors … account for a significant proportion of retracted clinical trials,” researchers find.
• “The Problem of Wrongly Identified and Nonverifiable Nucleotide Sequences and Cell Lines in Research Papers,” and why they’re “canaries in a coal mine.”
• Professor “cleared of data fabrication allegations after investigation.” A link to our coverage of the “statistically improbable data” tied to the researcher. 
• “New NIH Policies Make It Easier to End Grants, Ignore Peer Review.”
• “Holding science to account: A qualitative study of practices and challenges of watchdog science journalism,” coauthored by our Ivan Oransky. 
• Can X discourse be used to predict which papers will be retracted? Researchers investigate. 
• “Reviewers are better equipped to detect fraud than editors,” researchers say in response to study of coordinated fraud. See our earlier coverage.
• “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence – and that affects what scientific journals choose to publish.”
• “There is a danger in not being critical about the efforts that go under sleuthing,” psychologist Ioana Alina Cristea says. “The boundaries of what they are doing are very porous.” 
• “Riding the Autism Bicycle to Retraction Town.”
• “Court sets aside” university researcher’s “plagiarism case against colleague.”
• An advent calendar by Anna Abalkina, the creator of our Hijacked Journal Checker, that gives you a chance to spot issues in academic publishing.
• “Disquiet over ‘PhDs by publication’ diminishes doctorate’s prestige.”
• MDPI makes three “stealth corrections” of the peer review record after professor flags the papers as “being affected by a review mill.”
• “Gender disparities in publishing: how networks, occupational self-efficacy and the university shape the gender publication gap among professors in Germany.”
• The Royal Society journal Philosophical Transactions uses cover art that is AI generated, says researcher. 
• “Diabetes ‘Trade Journals’: A Rather Heterogeneous Affair.”
• “AI use widespread in research offices, global survey finds.”
• “Elsevier shutdown looms Down Under as open access talks collapse.”
• “The CNRS is breaking free from the Web of Science.”
• UK funding body “opens up grant proposal data to explore using AI to smooth peer review.”
• “The U.S. Is Funding Fewer Grants in Every Area of Science and Medicine.”
• Researchers propose the “BEYOND Guidelines for Preventing and Addressing Research Misconduct.”
• “Publish or perish: making sense of India’s research fraud epidemic.”
• “Research Integrity in an Era of AI and Massive Amounts of Data“: Authors expand on previous papers “and offer more details on solutions.”
• How the authors of recent World Health Organization guidelines on infertility treatment used the Retraction Watch Database to check for potentially falsified data. 
• “Low success rate in early career grants” in Australia “deeply disappointing.”
• “Universities told they must lead fight against scientific ‘paper mills’” in Poland. 
• Chinese ministry “kicks off a campaign to crack down on misconduct in academic papers.”
• “WHO said what? Non-robust standards in citing WHO and EPA drinking water guidelines.”
• “How I contributed to rejecting one of my favorite papers of all time.”

Like Retraction Watch? You can make a tax-deductible contribution to support our work, follow us on X or Bluesky, like us on Facebook, follow us on LinkedIn, add us to your RSS reader, or subscribe to our daily digest. If you find a retraction that’s not in our database, you can let us know here. For comments or feedback, email us at team@retractionwatch.com.

in Retraction watch on 2025-12-06 11:00:00 UTC.

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Why Leftover Pizza Is Actually Healthier: The Science of ‘Resistant Starch’ Explained

Researchers have discovered that cooling starchy foods—from pizza to rice—creates “resistant starch,” a carb that behaves like fiber and alters your blood sugar response

in Scientific American on 2025-12-05 19:00:00 UTC.

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Is a River Alive? A Conversation with Robert Macfarlane on Nature’s Sovereignty

Scientific American sits down with nature writer Robert Macfarlane to discuss his latest book—one of our top picks of 2025—and whether a river has rights

in Scientific American on 2025-12-05 18:30:00 UTC.

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Was the ‘Star of Bethlehem’ Really a Comet?

A scientist has identified a possible astronomical explanation for the Star of Bethlehem, as described in the Bible

in Scientific American on 2025-12-05 18:10:00 UTC.

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A CDC panel has struck down universal newborn hepatitis B vaccination

in Science News: Health & Medicine on 2025-12-05 18:01:45 UTC.

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Plastic Pollution Will More than Double by 2040, Yielding a Garbage Truck's Worth of Waste Each Second

An estimated 280 million metric tons of plastic waste will enter the air, water, soil, and human bodies every year by 2040, data shows

in Scientific American on 2025-12-05 17:28:00 UTC.

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Nature paper retracted after one investigation finds data errors, another finds no misconduct

Nature has retracted a paper on  melanoma after an investigation by the journal found issues with data that rendered certain results statistically insignificant. A separate institutional investigation concluded misconduct wasn’t involved, the lead author says.

The research behind the article, published in April 2016, was conducted in the lab of Ashani Weeraratna, then at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia. The paper has been cited 332 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science. The study investigated how the tumor microenvironment affected the spread of young versus aged cells.

An editorial investigation found some results in a figure were “no longer statistically significant, which affects the conclusions about therapy resistance,” according to the October 29 retraction notice. The inquiry also found  “several errors in image and source data consistency,” as well as errors with the sample numbers given in the original study.

Other authors on the paper — of which there are 46 total — are at Yale University, Mass General Hospital, Johns Hopkins, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of California, Los Angeles, the National Institute on Aging, and other prominent institutions. Four of the authors agreed with the retraction, 28 disagreed, and 14 didn’t respond, according to the notice. 

One of the authors who agreed with the retraction, Hsin-Yao Tang, was coauthor on another Wistar paper which was retracted in 2021 for data inconsistencies, as we reported at the time. He did not respond to our request for comment. 

The paper received a correction in 2016 for labels in a figure that were “inadvertently reversed.” In August 2023, the journal placed an expression of concern on the paper alerting readers the “reliability of some of the data presented in this manuscript is currently in question.”

An anonymous user on PubPeer posted three comments in September 2022 pointing out inconsistencies in images provided in the raw data versus the published versions. 

A different user commented the following month that the raw data for one of the figures had “many points followed by” asterisks. “If we exclude these points and graph the data, the graph and stats match the published version of the graph,” the user wrote. When the asterisked points were included, “the conclusions are no longer valid,” they added. 

Other commenters noted missing data or further discrepancies between the raw and published data for the experiment. 

Weeraratna, the corresponding and lead author on the paper, is now a researcher at Johns Hopkins and a member of the NIH National Cancer Advisory Board. She told Retraction Watch some results were “mistakenly labeled as outliers.” She also told us Wistar had formed an outside committee for an inquiry into the discrepancies. “The inquiry found no scientific misconduct,” she said, but added she could not discuss the matter further because of a confidentiality agreement. 

Francesca Cesari, chief biological, clinical and social sciences editor for Nature, told us the institute did not contact the journal regarding the investigation. Darien Sutton, the director of media relations at Wistar, declined to comment.

The researchers repeated the experiment in 2023 “with improved, less toxic, standard-of-care inhibitors unavailable at the time of the original work,” Weeraratna said, which confirmed the paper’s original conclusions.She said the researchers sent the results of this experiment to the journal, but “Nature did not consider these.” 

Cesari told us the experiments “were not an exact replication of the original work. While we carefully considered the information provided, it did not change our assessment of the concerns raised about the original publication.” 

Another Nature paper from the Weeraratna lab also drew attention on PubPeer shortly after it was published in 2022, with users pointing out similar issues to the retracted paper, such as inconsistencies with raw and published data, excluded values and unexpected image similarities. Weeraratna responded to several of these comments on the PubPeer thread to explain the discrepancies. The authors published a correction in January 2025 to address the issues. Nature told us they are looking into the paper further. 

Like Retraction Watch? You can make a tax-deductible contribution to support our work, follow us on X or Bluesky, like us on Facebook, follow us on LinkedIn, add us to your RSS reader, or subscribe to our daily digest. If you find a retraction that’s not in our database, you can let us know here. For comments or feedback, email us at team@retractionwatch.com.

in Retraction watch on 2025-12-05 17:23:41 UTC.

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What If the Moon Were Cheese? John Scalzi’s Latest Book Has the Answer

Scientific American talks to the author of When the Moon Hits Your Eye, one of our best fiction picks for 2025

in Scientific American on 2025-12-05 16:15:00 UTC.

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Psilocybin rewires specific mouse cortical networks in lasting ways

in The Transmitter on 2025-12-05 16:00:57 UTC.

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CDC Vaccine Panel Scraps Guidance for Universal Hepatitis B Shots at Birth

New guidance from the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel would do away with a decades-old universal birth dose recommendation for hepatitis B that helped cut infections by 99 percent in the U.S.

in Scientific American on 2025-12-05 15:40:00 UTC.

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Daniel H. Wilson on Finding a Native Take on Traditional Alien Invasion Stories

Hole in the Sky, by Daniel H. Wilson, is one of Scientific American’s best fiction picks of 2025. In the novel, aliens talk through an AI headset and land in the Cherokee Nation, while the military scrambles to contain and control the unknown

in Scientific American on 2025-12-05 15:30:00 UTC.

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Extremophile ‘Fire Amoeba’ Pushes the Boundaries of Complex Life

It was thought that complex cells couldn’t survive above a certain temperature, but a tiny amoeba has proven that assumption wrong

in Scientific American on 2025-12-05 15:15:00 UTC.

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China’s Explosive Zhuque-3 Test Previews the Global Race for Reusable Rockets

A partially successful test of China’s Zhuque-3 rocket shows that other countries are rapidly catching up with the U.S in the race for reusable rocketry

in Scientific American on 2025-12-05 14:45:00 UTC.

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Aluminum Is Crucial to Vaccines—And Safe. Why Are CDC Advisers Debating It?

RFK Jr.’s vaccine advisory panel will be discussing the inclusion of adjuvants in childhood vaccinations today. Here’s what’s at stake

in Scientific American on 2025-12-05 13:00:00 UTC.

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Telecom Fiber-Optic Cables Measured an Earthquake in Incredible Detail

Fiber optics that connect the world can detect its earthquakes, too

in Scientific American on 2025-12-05 12:00:00 UTC.

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Cosmic Magnification Is One of the Universe’s Weirdest Optical Illusions

In our topsy-turvy universe, sometimes the farther away an object is, the bigger it seems to be

in Scientific American on 2025-12-05 11:45:00 UTC.

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How Zuranolone, a Fast-Acting Drug, Might Help Those Suffering with Postpartum Depression

Journalist Marla Broadfoot discusses zuranolone, a drug that may help people whose postpartum depression hasn’t responded to traditional antidepressants.

in Scientific American on 2025-12-05 11:00:00 UTC.

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Schneider Shorts 5.12.2025 – I write poetry and fiction

in For Better Science on 2025-12-05 06:00:00 UTC.

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Episode 321 - Mike Beckstead, PhD

On December 4, 2025 we talked with Dr. Mike Beckstead about his work on changes in dopaminergic neuron excitability in the ventral tegmental area in an animal model of Alzheimer's disease. Mike explained the molecular mechanism of the excitability change and the change in gene expression at its cause.

Guest:

Mike Beckstead, Professor and Hille Family Foundation Chair in Neurodegenerative Disease Research, Aging & Metabolism Research Program Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation

Participating:

Matt Wanat, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA

Host:

Charles Wilson, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA

Thanks to James Tepper for original music

in Neuroscientists talk shop on 2025-12-04 23:59:00 UTC.

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CDC Vaccine Panel in Disarray over Hepatitis B Vote

Members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices seemed confused about a proposed recommendation for the birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine

in Scientific American on 2025-12-04 20:15:00 UTC.

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U.S. Man Dies of Rabies after Receiving Infected Kidney Transplant

A man has passed away after he received a kidney transplant from a person who had died with undiagnosed rabies, according to U.S. public health officials

in Scientific American on 2025-12-04 20:00:00 UTC.

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Scientific American’s Best Fiction of 2025

The 10 best fiction books of 2025, explore far-off planets, future climate catastrophes and more

in Scientific American on 2025-12-04 19:15:00 UTC.

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Scientific American’s Best Nonfiction of 2025

The 10 best nonfiction books of 2025, from the history of replaceable body parts to our AI future

in Scientific American on 2025-12-04 19:15:00 UTC.

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How a bacterial toxin linked to colon cancer messes with DNA

in Science News: Health & Medicine on 2025-12-04 19:00:00 UTC.

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Chatbots spewing facts, and falsehoods, can sway voters

in Science News: Psychology on 2025-12-04 19:00:00 UTC.

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AI Chatbots Shown to Sway Voters, Raising New Fears about Election Influence

Chatbots can measurably sway voters’ choices, new research shows. The findings raise urgent questions about AI’s role in future elections

in Scientific American on 2025-12-04 19:00:00 UTC.

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New Book for Young Readers Brings the Stories of 10 Remarkable Women to Life

Ten great stories about 10 forgotten female scientists that we hope will inspire middle school readers to pursue their own curiosity and get involved in STEM fields

in Scientific American on 2025-12-04 18:00:00 UTC.

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China’s CO2 Emissions Might Have Finally Peaked

China has rapidly become the world leader in renewable energy, but continued coal use means it could take longer for its emissions to decline

in Scientific American on 2025-12-04 16:28:00 UTC.

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The Black Death May Be Linked to a Mysterious Volcanic Eruption

The Black Death ravaged Europe, and scientists and historians are still working to understand how it became so deadly

in Scientific American on 2025-12-04 16:10:00 UTC.

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Glyphosate safety article retracted eight years after Monsanto ghostwriting revealed in court

A review article concluding the weed killer Roundup “does not pose a health risk to humans” has been retracted eight years after documents released in a court case revealed employees of Monsanto, the company that developed the herbicide, wrote the article but were not named as coauthors. 

The safety of glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, is hotly debated and currently under review at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the World Health Organization, in 2015 declared glyphosate “possibly carcinogenic.” 

The now-retracted article appeared in Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, an Elsevier title, in 2000. Gary Williams, then a pathologist at New York Medical College in Valhalla, Robert Kroes, a toxicologist at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands, and Ian C. Munro, a toxicologist at Cantox Health Sciences International in Ontario, Canada, were listed as the authors. The paper has been cited 614 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science. 

Three papers about glyphosate on which Williams was an author received an expression of concern and lengthy corrections in 2018 because the authors didn’t fully disclose their ties to Monsanto or the company’s involvement in the articles. 

In 2017, internal Monsanto documents, including emails between employees discussing scientific publications on the safety of glyphosate, were released in the course of a lawsuit alleging exposure to glyphosate caused people to develop non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. In one email, a Monsanto employee proposed “keeping the cost down” to produce a scientific paper with outside scientists “by us doing the writing and they would just edit & sign their names so to speak. Recall that is how we handled Williams Kroes & Munro, 2000.” (The email is on page 203 of the document linked here and above.)

Despite the revelation of corporate ghost-writing, the paper continued to be cited in research and policy documents without criticism, as well as in Wikipedia articles, according to scholars who analyzed its impact. The researchers, Alexander Kaurov of Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, and Naomi Oreskes, a historian of science at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., published their findings in September in another Elsevier journal, Environmental Science & Policy. They also wrote to the editors of Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology to formally request the paper’s retraction, they wrote in editorials describing their work in Science and Undark. 

Their request “was actually the first time a complaint came to my desk directly,” Martin van den Berg, a co-editor-in-chief of the journal, told Retraction Watch. The article was published long before he took over, said van den Berg, a toxicologist at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands, and “it was simply not brought to my attention” until Kaurov and Oreskes’ article. The retraction “could have been done as early as 2017, but it is clearly a case of two parallel information streams not connecting earlier,” he said. 

Kaurov and Oreskes wrote to the editors on July 25, Kaurov told us. The editors’ reaction “was exemplary and professional,” Kaurov said. They replied promptly, he said, and conducted their investigation in one month, which he considered “a reasonable amount of time.” 

The notice, which is more than 1,000 words long, appeared online in November. In it, van den Berg detailed “several critical issues that are considered to undermine the academic integrity of this article and its conclusions.” Most concerns were related to what van den Berg described as “the apparent contributions of Monsanto employees as co-writers to this article” without acknowledgment as coauthors. He also called out the authors’ reliance on unpublished studies from Monsanto for their conclusions that glyphosate exposure did not cause cancer, though other studies existed.

“The concerns specified here necessitate this retraction to preserve the scientific integrity of the journal,” van den Berg wrote. 

Van den Berg reached out to Williams, the sole surviving author, but did not receive a response, according to the notice. Williams, now an emeritus professor at New York Medical College, did not respond to our request for comment. An institutional investigation found “no evidence” Williams violated a policy against authoring a ghostwritten paper, the college told Science magazine in 2017. Kroes died in 2006 and Munro in 2011. 

A spokesperson for Bayer, which bought Monsanto, provided a statement which said the company “believe[s] Monsanto’s involvement was appropriately cited in the acknowledgments, which clearly states: ‘we thank the toxicologists and other scientists at Monsanto who made significant contributions to the development of exposure assessments and through many other discussions,’ and further identifies several ‘key personnel at Monsanto who provided scientific support.’”

“The consensus among regulatory bodies worldwide that have conducted their own independent assessments based on the weight of evidence is that glyphosate can be used safely as directed and is not carcinogenic,” said the company’s statement. 

The ghostwritten paper was among the 0.1 percent of most cited articles on glyphosate, Kaurov and Oreskes found in their analysis. Retracting the article “would not erase twenty-five years of influence,” they concluded, “but it would send a clear, overdue message that fraudulent authorship is unacceptable and that the scholarly record will be protected—no matter how old, how cited or how profitable the journal.”

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in Retraction watch on 2025-12-04 16:07:11 UTC.