Dr. Shaw is a Professor of Ophthalmology at the University of British Columbia. (source)
"Examining Some Flaws in the Present System
... [A] retraction basically means that the article is so flawed that it must be removed from the journal with a notice or highly visible stamp saying that it has been retracted and why such an action has been taken. Historically, adequate grounds for retraction include demonstrable plagiarism, duplicate publication of material without attribution or notice to the journal editor, intentional data distortion and falsification, or some combination of such infringements..
'Conflicted Commercialization'
The reality, unfortunately, is that most biomedical articles are not retracted for any of the foregoing reasons... It appears according to some authorities and prolific often cited researchers such as Ioannidis (2019) that the root problem is what he refers to as 'the conflicted commercialization of medicine'...
The unsettling dismissal and expulsion of one of Cochrane’s former stars, Peter Gøtzsche, took place after he published a number of articles and books critical of various practices in mainstream medicine... Ioannidis suggested that 'slander, administrative incompetence, and character assassination' seemed to himself, also a well-known and often cited reviewer for Cochrane, to have been used behind veils of 'secrecy', 'intolerance', and 'vague excuses'...
Other Examples of Misuse of the Peer Review Process
Increasingly, in recent years, there has been a trend for the process of peer review to be violated, not by authors, but by those who have a grudge against the authors, or some reported theory or finding of the article, in many instances, after it has been reviewed and has appeared in print. Hence, the increasing use of the odious red letter word 'RETRACTED' being stamped across the pages... [I]nexperienced journal editors may fail to understand the overall process. In other cases, journal editors may be subject to extreme external pressures to change the basic peer review process by repeated reviewing, or by retracting of articles that are already published for reasons that would not objectively merit a repeated review process, much less a retraction...
Then and Now: What to Do Next?
... [W]hile in the past retractions of articles viewed as hostile to industry were infrequent, now efforts to force retraction are more or less codified and commonly deployed to silence independent scientists and their unbiased works. Trolls and bloggers, some of whom may be employed by the relevant industry for forcing retractions by intimidating editors and authors alike, now actively seek out articles in so-called 'controversial' areas and almost immediately mobilize attacks through complaints to the publishing journals and to the authors’ home universities, hospitals, or other institutions...
As a collateral side effect, the controlled management of the peer review process — more and more commonly turning it into a weapon with which to attack authors and publishers releasing findings that threaten the vested interests of the medical, pharmaceutical, governmental industry — is undermining the very basis of scientific review itself...
Conclusion and Disclaimer
... It is an unfortunate new reality but the responsability [sic] and power to end weaponization of the peer review process seems ultimately to fall to the authors. If they demand clear terms for when a retraction or re-review may occur, and if they require that these alternatives shall be limited to serious infractions, those seeking to turn the peer review process into a tool for academic warfare will be forced to find a different avenue to attack."
Copyright (c) 2020 Christopher A. Shaw
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