Data detective identifies hundreds of correction- or retraction-worthy papers

In the midst of all the sham, scam, and flimflam in journals today, here’s a story of a real-life data detective who makes a difference:

By day, [John] Carlisle is an anaesthetist working for England’s National Health Service in the seaside town of Torquay. But in his spare time, he roots around the scientific record for suspect data in clinical research. Over the past decade, his sleuthing has included trials used to investigate a wide range of health issues, from the benefits of specific diets to guidelines for hospital treatment. It has led to hundreds of papers being retracted and corrected, because of both misconduct and mistakes. And it has helped to end the careers of some large-scale fakers: of the six scientists worldwide with the most retractions, three were brought down using variants of Carlisle’s data analyses.

David Adam, “How a data detective exposed suspicious medical trials” at Nature

He focuses on medicine because bad data can put lives at risk.

See also: Retraction Watch wonders: How did THIS nonsense end up in a peer-reviewed journal?

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