Retracted publications in the biomedical literature with authors from mainland China

Investigate the relationship between the retraction reasons and the quality of methodology in non-Cochrane retracted systematic reviews: a systematic review

BACKGROUND

This systematic review aimed to investigate the relationship between retraction status and the methodology quality in the retracted non-Cochrane systematic review.

METHOD

PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus databases were searched with keywords including systematic review, meta-analysis, and retraction or retracted as a type of publication until September 2023. There were no time or language restrictions. Non-Cochrane medical systematic review studies that were retracted were included in the present study. The data related to the retraction status of the articles were extracted from the retraction notice and Retraction Watch, and the quality of the methodology was evaluated with the AMSTAR-2 checklist by two independent researchers. Data were analyzed in the Excel 2019 and SPSS 21 software.

RESULT

Of the 282 systematic reviews, the corresponding authors of 208 (73.75%) articles were from China. The average interval between publish and retraction of the article was about 23 months and about half of the non-Cochrane systematic reviews were retracted in the last 4 years. The most common reasons for retractions were fake peer reviews and unreliable data, respectively. Editors and publishers were the most retractors or requestors for retractions. More than 86% of the retracted non-Cochrane SRs were published in journals with an impact factor above two and had a critically low quality. Items 7, 9, and 13 among the critical items of the AMSTAR-2 checklist received the lowest scores.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

There was a significant relationship between the reasons of retraction and the quality of the methodology (P-value < 0.05). Plagiarism software and using the Cope guidelines may decrease the time of retraction. In some countries, strict rules for promoting researchers increase the risk of misconduct. To avoid scientific errors and improve the quality of systematic reviews/meta-analyses (SRs/MAs), it is better to create protocol registration and retraction guidelines in each journal for SRs/MAs.

Evolution and characterization of health sciences paper retractions in Brazil and Portugal

The retraction of health sciences publications is a growing concern. To understand the patterns in a particular country-context and design specific measures to address the problem, it is important to describe and characterize retractions. We aimed to assess the evolution of health science retractions in Brazil and Portugal and to describe their features. We conducted a cross-sectional study including all health sciences retracted articles with at least one author affiliated to a Portuguese or Brazilian institution identified through Retraction Watch database. A total of 182 retracted articles were identified. The number of retractions increased over time, but the proportion related to the whole of publications remained stable. A total of 50.0% and 60.8% of the Portuguese and Brazilian retracted articles, respectively, were published in first and second quartile journals. Scientific misconduct accounted for 60.1% and 55.9% of retractions in Brazil and Portugal. In both countries, the most frequent cause of misconduct was plagiarism. The time from publication to retraction decreases as the journal quartile increases. The retraction of health sciences articles did not decrease over time in Brazil and Portugal. There is a need to develop strategies aimed at preventing, monitoring and managing scientific misconduct according to the country context.

Characteristics of Retracted Publications From Kazakhstan: An Analysis Using the Retraction Watch Database

BACKGROUND

Retraction is a correction process for the scientific literature that acts as a barrier to the dissemination of articles that have serious faults or misleading data. The purpose of this study was to investigate the characteristics of retracted papers from Kazakhstan.

METHODS

Utilizing data from Retraction Watch, this cross-sectional descriptive analysis documented all retracted papers from Kazakhstan without regard to publication dates. The following data were recorded: publication title, DOI number, number of authors, publication date, retraction date, source, publication type, subject category of publication, collaborating country, and retraction reason. Source index status, Scopus citation value, and Altmetric Attention Score were obtained.

RESULTS

Following the search, a total of 92 retracted papers were discovered. One duplicate article was excluded, leaving 91 publications for analysis. Most articles were retracted in 2022 (n = 22) and 2018 (n = 19). Among the identified publications, 49 (53.9%) were research articles, 39 (42.9%) were conference papers, 2 (2.2%) were review articles, and 1 (1.1%) was a book chapter. Russia (n = 24) and China (n = 5) were the most collaborative countries in the retracted publications. Fake-biased peer review (n = 38), plagiarism (n = 25), and duplication (n = 14) were the leading causes of retraction.

CONCLUSION

The vast majority of the publications were research articles and conference papers. Russia was the leading collaborative country. The most prominent retraction reasons were fake-biased peer review, plagiarism, and duplication. Efforts to raise researchers' understanding of the grounds for retraction and ethical research techniques are required in Kazakhstan.

The impact of "Five No's for Publication" on academic misconduct

China initiated the "Five No's for Publication" in December 2015 as a response to rising incidents of retraction. Use the number of retracted publications and their original publication time as proxies to investigate the effect of the Five No's policy on academic misconduct. We searched the Retraction Watch Database for research articles published by Chinese scholars from 1 March 2010 to 29 February 2020. The short- and long-term trends of the number of publications were presented by conducting an interrupted time series analysis in quarterly time units. Of 4,215 retracted papers with Chinese authors, 2,881 involving academic misconduct were identified. In the first quarter (12.01.2015-02.29.2016) after the implementation of the Five No's, an average reduction of 55.80 (p < 0.001) publications that involve academic misconduct was observed, although there was an increase in the trend of publications of 3.34 per quarter (p < 0.01) in the long run (12.01.2015-02.29.2020), relative to the pre-intervention period (03.01.2010-11.30.2015). The validity of these results was further supported by three different robustness checks. China's government should strengthen enforcement, promote education, and improve the scientific evaluation system to consolidate the influence of the Five No's policy and foster an ethical research environment.

Do retraction practices work effectively? Evidence from citations of psychological retracted articles

Scientific retraction practices are intended to help purge the continued use of flawed research and assist in maintaining the integrity, credibility and quality of scientific literature. However, the practical effect of retraction is still vague and needs to be further explored. In this study, we analysed the citation counts and sentiments (positive/negative) of retracted articles in psychology journals from Web of Science to explore the effect of retraction. Causal inference strategies were used to measure the net effect of retractions on citation. Results show that the retraction practices induced the citation counts to reduce as expected. However, the proportion of negative citations also decreased because of retraction, indicating an unsatisfied effect. The retraction practice of high-impact factors and open access journals was more effective than other journals. The study integrated an understanding of the dissemination of erroneous publications and provided implications for liabilities involved in the whole retraction process.

Analysis of Retracted Publications in The Biomedical Literature from Turkey

BACKGROUND

Retraction is a process for correcting the literature and provides a barrier to the dissemination of publications that include major faults or false-misleading data. The aim of this study was to examine the characteristics of retracted articles in the biomedical field sourced from Turkey.

METHODS

In this descriptive cross-sectional study, all retracted publications from Turkey on PubMed were listed without date restriction. Data covering the article title, authors, publication date, retraction date, time between publication and retraction dates (in months), journal, article type, country of the corresponding author, peer review timeline (in days), reason for retraction, and subject area of the retracted item were recorded. Citation data were obtained using the Scopus database. The altmetric attention scores of the articles were recorded.

RESULTS

A total of 102 articles were listed and after the implementation of exclusion criteria, 86 articles were included for analysis. The first retracted article was published in 2000 (n = 1), while the most retracted articles were published in 2020 (n = 11). The median time lag between publication and retraction was 10.33 (0.73-144.06) months. The main factors causing retraction were plagiarism (n = 23), duplication (n = 22) and error (n = 17). The total number of citations was 695. A total of 224 citations were in the pre-retraction period and 471 citations were in the post-retraction period.

CONCLUSION

The retracted article counts showed a rising trend over the years. The leading causes of retraction for articles from Turkey were plagiarism, duplication, and error. It was found that the articles continued to be cited after the retraction. Researchers in Turkey should be educated on retraction, particularly plagiarism and duplication. Strategies should be developed to prevent articles from being cited after retraction.

Retracted articles in the biomedical literature from Indian authors

The aim of the present study is to identify retracted articles in the biomedical literature (co) authored by Indian authors and to examine the features of retracted articles. The PubMed database was searched to find the retracted articles in order to reach the goal. The search yielded 508 records and retrieved for the detailed analysis of: authorships and collaboration type, funding information, who retracts? journals and impact factors, and reasons for retraction. The results show that most of the biomedical articles retracted were published after 2010 and common reasons are plagiarism and fake data for retraction. More than half of the retracted articles were co-authored within the institutions and there is no repeat offender. 25% of retracted articles were published in the top 15 journals and 33% were published in the non-impact factor journals. Average time from publication to retraction is calculated to 2.86 years and retractions due to fake data takes longest period among the reasons. Majority of the funded research was retracted due to fake data whereas it is plagiarism for non-funded.

Flipping the grant application review process

The return on research investment resulting from new breakthrough scientific discoveries may be decreasing over time due to the law of diminishing returns, the relative decrease of research funding in terms of purchasing power parity, and various activities gaming the system. By altering the grant-review process, the scientific community may directly address the third problem. There is evidence that peer reviews of research proposals may lack reliability and may produce invalid or inconsistent ratings. In addition, extreme focus on grantsmanship threatens to uproot a cornerstone principle that scientific-value should be the key driver in funding decision-making. This opinion provides (1) a justification of the need to consider alternative strategies to boost the impact of public investment in innovative scientific discovery, (2) proposes a framework for flipping the traditional front-loaded peer-review approach to allocation of research funding, into a new back-loaded assessment of scholarly return on investment, and (3) provokes the scientific community to accelerate the debate on alternative funding mechanisms, as the stakes of inaction may be very high.

Fake Peer Review and Inappropriate Authorship Are Real Evils

Inappropriate authorship and other fraudulent publication strategies are pervasive. Here, I deal with contribution disclosures, authorship disputes versus plagiarism among collaborators, kin co-authorship, gender bias, authorship trade, and fake peer review (FPR). In contrast to underserved authorship and other ubiquitous malpractices, authorship trade and FPR appear to concentrate in some Asian countries that exhibit a mixed academic pattern of rapid growth and poor ethics. It seems that strong pressures to publish coupled with the incessantly growing number of publications entail a lower quality of published science in part attributable to a poor, compromised or even absent (in predatory journals) peer review. In this regard, the commitment of Publons to strengthen this fundamental process and ultimately ensure the quality and integrity of the published articles is laudable. Because the many recommendations for adherence to authorship guidelines and rules of honest and transparent research reporting have been rather ineffective, strong deterrents should be established to end manipulated peer review, undeserved authorship, and related fakeries.