Retraction Watch: Journals are failing to address duplication in the literature, says a new study

https://retractionwatch.com/2019/01...plication-in-the-literature-says-a-new-study/

 

"self-plagiarism" is an interesting term, and is akin to what so many of the BPS club do; cite their own and close colleagues' work to give the impression of independent validation.

 

Yes! I did a work placement years ago with HSE, one of the things I was looking at was ME/CFS. I was shocked at the number of papers published by some of the names we know well that basically just re-worked data they'd used in previous papers. And it certainly has an effect on such as Cochrane.

 

I was recently thinking about this idea in relation to Wessely's outpourings between 1989 and 1991, all apparently based largely on the same cohort of 50 patients of whom 30 accepted treatment. 20 fulfilled criteria for probable or major depression and were offered tricyclic antidepressants (3 of them refused). A further 3 fulfilled criteria for other psychiatric disorders and were offered similar treatment.

In fairness, Wessely did state that "we have not conducted a randomised, controlled trial, but a pilot study, the necessary preliminary to a more formal assessment". It is a shame that all those influenced by these papers seem not to have been interested in that qualifying of the findings.

 

Thank you for this posting @Andy. Often we see researchers who have published many hundreds of peer reviewed papers. As it sometimes goes in academia, the more senior academics, may have the juniors do the hard slogging, and the seniors sign their name to it.

And now another wrinkle that explains those many hundreds of publications - write a paper, rinse and repeat.