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01-03-2021 | Public Health | Scientific Contribution

Optimizing peer review to minimize the risk of retracting COVID-19-related literature

Authors: Jaime A. Teixeira da Silva, Helmar Bornemann-Cimenti, Panagiotis Tsigaris

Published in: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy | Issue 1/2021

Abstract

Retractions of COVID-19 literature in both preprints and the peer-reviewed literature serve as a reminder that there are still challenging issues underlying the integrity of the biomedical literature. The risks to academia become larger when such retractions take place in high-ranking biomedical journals. In some cases, retractions result from unreliable or nonexistent data, an issue that could easily be avoided by having open data policies, but there have also been retractions due to oversight in peer review and editorial verification. As COVID-19 continues to affect academics and societies around the world, failures in peer review might also constitute a public health risk. The effectiveness by which COVID-19 literature is corrected, including through retractions, depends on the stringency of measures in place to detect errors and to correct erroneous literature. It also relies on the stringent implementation of open data policies.

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We recognize that this is simply a representation of an “ideal” solution, but that, in reality, there are likely to be weaknesses in each of these, due to biases and human failure. For example, it is reasonable to expect that authors, peer reviewers and editors, as well as publishing staff, are in some way, being impacted by COVID-19, physically, emotionally, or psychologically, thus potentially lowering the optimization of any one of these processed..

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Title: Optimizing peer review to minimize the risk of retracting COVID-19-related literature
Authors: Jaime A. Teixeira da Silva
Helmar Bornemann-Cimenti
Panagiotis Tsigaris
Publication date: 01-03-2021
Publisher: Springer Netherlands
Keywords: Public Health
COVID-19
Published in: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy / Issue 1/2021
Print ISSN: 1386-7423
Electronic ISSN: 1572-8633
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11019-020-09990-z

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Optimizing peer review to minimize the risk of retracting COVID-19-related literature

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