The Scientist recently published a “”https://www.the-scientist.com/article/home/52864/“>Guide to retractions” written by Andrea Gawrylewski.

She makes a good point that there has been a proliferation of terms to create awareness that something’s not right about a paper. “Expression of Concern Reaffirmed”? That’s one I hadn’t heard before.

In our neck of the woods, I’m embarrassed to say that we are rather old fashioned. We only have Addenda, Corrigenda, Errata and Retractions (which, for consistency, we should start calling ‘Retracta’, I guess).

I suspect that this paucity of terms will be a bit disappointing to some of our readers, particularly to those who write to alert us that someone committed some form of misconduct that invalidates the conclusions of a paper and then discover that we didn’t even “express our concern”, let alone reaffirm it.

This is not to say that we don’t care when someone lets us know that a paper may have fraudulent data. But the reality is that many of the allegations we receive are not documented at all and/or are anonymous. In other words, it’s hard to take seriously an e-mail saying:

“Please be aware that the paper by Hornmeister et al. is the result of scientific fraud.

Sincerely yours,

A friend of Nature Medicine"

Sometimes, people accuse colleagues of what one could call ‘fraud by proxy’:

“Please be aware that the paper by Hornmeister et al. that you are currently considering may be the result of scientific fraud, as he has a paper under investigation at another journal.

Sincerely yours,

Another concerned friend of Nature Medicine"

It’s then amusing to discover that, roughly half the time, we are not even considering a paper by Dr. Hornmeister.

Retracting, expressing concerns or writing an editor’s warning about a paper is a serious matter, not only for the authors, but also for the journal that published the work. Of course, all of us want to get the scientific record straight, but I don’t think that making ill-documented, anonymous accusations is a good beginning. We have previously published in the journal suggestions about what to do when you suspect someone has committed fraud. If I’m not mistaken, throwing the stone and then hiding around the corner was not one of them.

We welcome your “expressions of concern”, but please back them up with evidence and be prepared to stand behind them. As long as we continue receiving vague accusations from “friends of Nature Medicine”, Dr. Hornmeister can continue to sleep peacefully.