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

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.

Corona exhaustion (CORONEX): COVID-19-induced exhaustion grinding down humanity

“…More attention is needed to drug abuse (Haley et al., 2020) and alcohol abuse ( Teixeira da Silva and Testino, 2020 ) that may arise absent suitable support infrastructures to deal with losses caused by COVID-19 and CORONEX. Academics, medics, policy makers and mental health practitioners also need to be able to discern validated facts from misinformation, and fact from opinion, when wading through thousands of papers, including pseudo-science, published in a sometimes indistinguishable milieu of preprints, peer-reviewed journals, and predatory venues ( Teixeira da Silva, 2020a ; Teixeira da Silva et al., 2020a , 2020b ).…”

COVID-19 and the ethics of human challenge trials

“…Solbakk et al (2021) advance arguments against controlled human infection studies making a case for upholding well-established research ethics guidelines, even under exceptional pandemic circumstances. Da Silva et al (2021) look at problems in academic publishing such as keeping up the rigor of peer review and the quality of editorial decision making when dealing with a significantly increased manuscript flow and facing the urgency to work faster rather than slower. They advance six recommendations in order to "minimize risks of publishing questionable original research on public health research related to COVID-19" (ibid.).…”

COVID-19 research and publishing: Advance ambitiously, but cautiously, in 2021

“…Evidently, the risks of publishing poor, unreliable or questionable COVID-19 research or generating unreliable information cannot be eliminated, but these risks can be minimized. Several practical steps to fortifying peer review and publication processes, while minimizing such risks, were suggested: papers should be pre-screened with the assistance of a statistics editor; at least three peer reviewers, preferably as open peer review, should be used; a mandatory open data policy, with strict ethical enforcement, is needed; screening, edits, peer review and online publication should be conducted within short but reasonable time limits to ensure quality, but not victimize authors with tardy and inefficient editorial processing (15) .…”