SoylentNews

Paper Blaming COVID-19 on 5G Technology Withdrawn

posted by Fnord666 on Monday July 27 2020, @11:37PM   
from the bad-science dept.

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for RandomFactor:

no soylents were surprised

Paper blaming COVID-19 on 5G technology withdrawn:

A paper which argued that 5G cellphone technology could lead to infection with the novel coronavirus has been retracted, but not before scientific sleuth Elisabeth Bik wondered whether it was the "worst paper of 2020."

The article, "5G Technology and induction of coronavirus in skin cells," came from a group from Italy, the United States and Russia, and appeared in theJournal of Biological Regulators and Homeostatic Agents. The journal is published by Biolife, which asserts that it's peer reviewed but has not responded to a request for comment.

The abstract is now marked "WITHDRAWN" on PubMed and the paper has disappeared from the journal's website. The abstract has been preserved here.

---

Original Submission

• not a junk journal (Score: 4, Informative) by The Vocal Minority on Tuesday July 28 2020, @03:52AM

  by The Vocal Minority (2765) on Tuesday July 28 2020, @03:52AM (#1027493) Journal

  My first thought was that this was a junk/predatory journal but it appears to be indexed in Scopus and Web of Science. Scimago journal rank of 0.4 so probably not a top tier journal but still legitimate:
  https://www.scimagojr.com/journalsearch.php?q=29572&tip=sid&clean=0 [scimagojr.com]

  Yes, peer review is not infallible, but this would still be very embarrassing for the journal I would imagine.

  Starting Score:	1		point
  Moderation		+2
  Informative=1, Underrated=1, Total=2
  Extra 'Informative' Modifier		0
  Karma-Bonus Modifier		+1
  Total Score:		4