Misconduct accounts for the majority of retracted scientific publications

Ferric C. Fang · R. Grant Steen · Arturo Casadevall

1,231 citations0/0 files storedProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

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Academic integrity and plagiarism scientometrics and bibliometrics research Academic Publishing and Open Access

Abstract

A detailed review of all 2,047 biomedical and life-science research articles indexed by PubMed as retracted on May 3, 2012 revealed that only 21.3% of retractions were attributable to error. In contrast, 67.4% of retractions were attributable to misconduct, including fraud or suspected fraud (43.4%), duplicate publication (14.2%), and plagiarism (9.8%). Incomplete, uninformative or misleading retraction announcements have led to a previous underestimation of the role of fraud in the ongoing retraction epidemic. The percentage of scientific articles retracted because of fraud has increased ∼10-fold since 1975. Retractions exhibit distinctive temporal and geographic patterns that may reveal underlying causes.

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2005Why Most Published Research Findings Are False 2009How Many Scientists Fabricate and Falsify Research? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Survey Data 2005Scientists behaving badly

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