The retractions of papers in @TheLancet and the @NEJM have been met with outrage, anger and calls for resignation of the editors. Let's take a moment to think about this. What is a journal's and an editor's responsibility? To ensure that they publish the best science. Thread 
They also need to publish the best science reliably and in a timely manner. How do they do this? They send to peer reviewers, get comments, and make a decision. They also rely heavily on authors for the veracity and integrity of the paper and their potential or real COI
Authors sign a declaration that they vouch for the data they present. Given the present circumstances in science, is it realistic to expect that editors and reviewers get the raw data of every single study that's submitted to their journal to guide their decision?
Where researchers are possessive of their data, and funders (with few exceptions) don't mandate public sharing of data, are we passing the buck to journals and editors? Can journals be held responsible for lack of integrity of researchers and soft-pedalling by funding agencies
Criticizing journals and editors for the failure of the system (researchers' lack of integrity, funders not mandating public sharing of data) demonstrates a lack of understanding of hard realities in science publishing. But all's not lost yet...
Let's learn from these retractions. Let's start a global movement to make data from publicly funded / charity-funded research to be available in public domain. Researchers can't continue to hoard data. We, the public, paid for it, right?
#datasharing #transparency
#datasharing #transparency
