Professor Cornell Brian Wansink was a darling of the media. Now his studies are retracting.

A prestigious family of medical journals has removed many articles written by Professor Cornell Brian Wansink, a food researcher and former media outlet whose work has been increasingly challenged by critics in recent years.

The journal of the American Medical Association, JAMA Network, said it removed six articles, including how the size of bowls affected food consumption, how fasting changed dietary preferences, the articles still seem to be available in line but carry a red top note that says "article alert" and directs readers to a note of withdrawal.

Dynamic and accessible studies have helped Wansink become a recurring part of the media circuit, with his work spawning innumerable news items. He published a study showing that people who ate bowls of "bottomless" soup continue to eat while their bowls are filled, as a parable about the potential health effects of large portions. Another with a headline titled "Bad Popcorn in Large Buckets," also warned of the dangers of presenting foods in large quantities, according to Vox.

But, according to JAMA, Cornell said he was unable to confirm the scientific validity of the six studies after an investigation because he was unable to access the original data on which they were based. The university had been contacted to evaluate the articles after JAMA reported them for possible concern in May.

"Cornell University has notified JAMA that, based on its investigation, they are not able to provide assurances regarding the scientific validity of the six studies," JAMA said in a statement on Wednesday. "Their response is:" We regret that as we do not have access to the original data, we can not guarantee that the results of the studies are valid. As a result, the 6 articles reporting the results of these studies published in JAMA, JAMA Internal Medicine and JAMA Pediatrics are retracted.

In an email to the Washington Post, Wansink said the retractions were "rather surprising".

"According to our coauthors and myself, independent analyzes of our data sets confirmed all our published results," he said. "What we have not kept in the last 25 years is the original paper and pencil surveys and the coding sheets used in these articles. In other words, once we combined all the data into spreadsheets, we launched the paper and pencil versions. This may be the reason why they said they could not reproduce them from scratch (that is, there were no scratches). As I told my co-authors, I am very proud of all these documents and I am sure they will be reproduced by other groups. "

For years, Wansink, professor of marketing at Cornell Business School, director of the University's Food and Brand Lab, has gained notoriety that many academics would strive to achieve. According to Vox, he received a prestigious nomination at the Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion of the Department of Agriculture and helped oversee the formulation of federal dietary guidelines. He has been quoted in popular media like O, Oprah Magazine, and the Today Show, and has been featured in newspapers such as the New York Times and the Washington Post. According to the blog The Skeptical Scientist, directed by doctoral student Tim van der Zee, hundreds of articles published by Wansink have attracted so much attention that they have been cited some 20,000 times.

But problems began to arise in 2016, after Wansink wrote an article about his study that has garnered much criticism, according to BuzzFeed. Other researchers began studying his studies and raised questions about his methodology. In 2017, Cornell reviewed four of his articles that revealed "many cases of inappropriate data processing and statistical analysis," but said the errors "were not a scientific fault."

According to BuzzFeed, who published a big report on Wansink earlier this year, critics from around the world have analyzed more than 50 of his studies to draw up a list of errors and inconsistencies called "Wansink File". the papers were retracted and over a dozen others corrected. Cornell opened another investigation into Wansink's work last year, reported BuzzFeed.

According to BuzzFeed's February report, which included an array of Wansink emails from the State University of New Mexico, which employs one of Wansink's associates, Wansink and his associates at Cornell Food and Brand Lab have friendly meal lessons that they could feed the masses. "

In a correspondence between 2008 and 2016, the well-known scientist Cornell and his team discussed and even joked about the exhaustive extraction of data for impressive results. They developed strategies on how to publish inferior studies, sometimes targeting low-level journals. And they often formulated their conclusions in the hope of generating media coverage, as Wansink once said, "spends a lot of time".

"I am and I am extremely proud of the work done here in the lab," Wansink told BuzzFeed. "The Food and Brand Lab does not use" low quality data "nor does it seek to publish" inferior studies ".

Cornell did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesman told Retraction Watch that the university planned to issue a statement Friday on a study of Wansink's work she had completed.

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