Retractions are driven by pressure to produce studies quickly, watchdog co-founder says More than 500 studies on COVID-19 have been withdrawn due to “bias,” “unreliable” information, or unspecified reasons, a blog that tracks retracted documents, found. Retraction Watch co-founder Ivan Oransky told The College Fix via phone interview one reason for the high number of retractions is the academic system’s incentive structure which pressures researchers to rapidly produce studies and get them peer reviewed as quickly as possible. “Why do they feel the need to rush papers through? Well, it’s because that’s how they get or keep their jobs, that’s how they get grants, everything is based on that,” he said. “When you know that your whole career depends on publishing papers in particular journals, you’re going to do what you have to do to publish those papers. Most of the time that means you work hard, you hire the smart grad students and postdocs,” he said. Oransky also said researchers may feel “too desperate” or that “incentives are so stark” that there’s no “humanly possible way” to do it. “So you start engaging in misconduct,” he said. The articles in the list pertain to risk factors related to COVID-19 vaccines and various […]