AUDIO – UNBELIEVABLE LYING DOG –

Feb. 2023 – Elsevier included the same explanation in 23 of the 24 retractions, saying the papers were being retracted because they “did not include a declaration of a conflict of interest of one author in relation to diagnostic tools which the paper endorses.” The statement also says that the same author was editor-in-chief of the journal at the time of publication, and that there was no evidence of independent peer review by external reviewers. One paper was not cited for a conflict of interest but instead was retracted for “lack of original methodology,” along with the same peer-review issue.

Dorothy Bishop, a developmental neuropsychologist at University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, who played a part in spurring the journals to investigate Matson’s papers eight years ago, was surprised to finally see it happen. “I never thought they’d get around to doing anything, but there you go,” she says.

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