COVID-19 Article Retractions in Journals Indexed in PubMed

A comprehensive overview of studies that assessed article retractions within the biomedical sciences

This study aims to provide a comprehensive overview of previous research that has investigated retractions within the biomedical fields and assess their methodological quality. We searched three major electronic databases for articles on retractions within the biomedical field: PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus. In total, 162 articles were included in the analysis. We evaluated their methodological quality using the items of "a measurement tool to assess systematic reviews" (AMSTAR-2) checklist and the Cochrane guidance. The studies had been published in more than 20 biomedical disciplines or fields of investigation, and two-thirds were published after 2017. Concerning methodology, none of the studies fulfilled all the suggested items; five studies did not meet any of the suggested AMSTAR-2 categories or Cochrane guidelines. The most prevalent reported reasons for retraction were fraud and plagiarism (21.0%). In summary, there has been increasing interest in assessing the characteristics and impact of retractions in the biomedical sciences. The studies cited types of misconduct more often than honest errors as a major reason for retraction. The methodological quality of the existing studies in this area appears to be suboptimal. Future investigators should improve upon this, particularly in the quality of the data selection and extraction.

Diabetes Mellitus, Energy Metabolism, and COVID-19

Obesity, diabetes mellitus (mostly type 2), and COVID-19 show mutual interactions because they are not only risk factors for both acute and chronic COVID-19 manifestations, but also because COVID-19 alters energy metabolism. Such metabolic alterations can lead to dysglycemia and long-lasting effects. Thus, the COVID-19 pandemic has the potential for a further rise of the diabetes pandemic. This review outlines how preexisting metabolic alterations spanning from excess visceral adipose tissue to hyperglycemia and overt diabetes may exacerbate COVID-19 severity. We also summarize the different effects of SARS-CoV-2 infection on the key organs and tissues orchestrating energy metabolism, including adipose tissue, liver, skeletal muscle, and pancreas. Last, we provide an integrative view of the metabolic derangements that occur during COVID-19. Altogether, this review allows for better understanding of the metabolic derangements occurring when a fire starts from a small flame, and thereby help reducing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Translation in action: Influence, collaboration, and evolution of COVID-19 research with Clinical and Translational Science Awards consortium support

The National Institutes of Health (NIH)'s Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) consortium aims to accelerate translational processes that move discoveries from bench to bedside. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic presented unmatched challenges and applications for CTSA hubs nationwide. Our study used bibliometrics to assess features of COVID-19 publications supported by the national CTSA program to characterize the consortium's response to the pandemic. Our goal was to understand relative scientific influence, collaboration across hubs, and trends in research emphasis over time. We identified publications from NIH's curated iSearch COVID-19 Publication Portfolio from February 2020 to February 2023; 3234 peer-reviewed articles relevant to COVID-19 cited a CTSA grant. All 66 CTSA hubs were represented, with large-size and longstanding hubs contributing more publications. Most publications cited UL1 grants, 457 cited KL2/TL1 training grants, and 164 cited multiple hub grants. Compared to a random sample of non-CTSA-supported COVID-19 publications, the CTSA portfolio exhibited greater clinical relevance, more human research, and higher altmetric and citation influence. Results were similar for multi-hub publications involving networked initiatives like multi-site clinical trials or the National COVID-19 Cohort Collaborative. Shifts from molecular/cellular-oriented research toward human-oriented research over time were evident, demonstrating translation in action. Results illuminate how the CTSA consortium confronted the pandemic through high-quality projects oriented toward human research, working across hubs on high-value collaborations, advancing along the translational spectrum over time. Findings validate CTSA hubs as critical support structures during health emergencies.

Does haste make waste? Prevalence and types of errors reported after publication of studies of COVID-19 therapeutics

BACKGROUND

The COVID-19 pandemic spurred publication of a rapid proliferation of studies on potential therapeutic agents. While important for the advancement of clinical care, pressure to collect, analyze, and report data in an expedited manner could potentially increase the rate of important errors, some of which would be captured in published errata. We hypothesized that COVID-19 therapeutic studies published in the early years of the pandemic would be associated with a high rate of published errata and that, within these errata, there would be a high prevalence of serious errors.

METHODS

We performed a review of published errata associated with empirical studies of COVID-19 treatments. Errata were identified via a MEDLINE and Embase search spanning January 2020 through September 2022. Errors located within each published erratum were characterized by location within publication, error type, and error seriousness.

RESULTS

Of 47 studies on COVID-19 treatments with published errata, 18 met inclusion criteria. Median time from publication of the original article to publication of the associated erratum was 76 days (range, 12-511 days). A majority of errata addressed issues with author attribution or conflict of interest disclosures (39.5%) or numerical results (25.6%). Only one erratum contained a serious error: a typographical error which could have misled readers into believing that the treatment in question had serious adverse effects when in fact it did not.

CONCLUSIONS

Despite accelerated publication times, we found among studies of COVID-19 treatments the majority of errata (17/18) reported minor errors that did not lead to misinterpretation of the study results. Retractions, an indicator of scientific misdirection even more concerning than errata, were beyond the scope of this review.

Article retraction rates in selected MeSH term categories in PubMed published between 2010 and 2020

BACKGROUND

Academic article retractions occur across all disciplines, though few studies have examined the association between research topics and retraction rates.

OBJECTIVES

We assessed and compared the rate of retraction across several important clinical research topics.

METHODS

Information about the number of publications, the number of retractions, the retraction rate, and the time to retraction was collected for articles identified by 15 Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) terms. These articles were published between 1 January 2010 and 31 December 2020. The searches took place between 18 September 2021 and 24 October 2021. The MeSH terms were selected based on our clinical experience with the expectation that there will be multiple publications during the timeframe to use for the searches. Additional topics were selected based on the frequency of controversy in the public media and were identified by the Altmetric Top 100 report.

RESULTS

The mean number of publications for all categories was 181,975 ± 332,245; the median number of publications was 67,991 [Q1, Q3; 31951.5, 138,981.5]. The mean number of retractions was 100.3 ± 251.3, and the median number of retractions was 22 [Q1, Q3; 6.5, 53]. The mean time to retraction ranged from 114 days to 1,409.5 days; the median was 857.3 days [Q1, Q3; 684.7, 1098.6], depending on the topic. The various MeSH term categories used in this study had significant differences in retraction rate and time to retraction. The "Neoplasms" category had the highest total number of retractions (993) and one of the highest retraction rates (75.4 per 100,000 publications).

DISCUSSION

All PubMed categories analyzed in this study had retracted articles. The median time to retraction was 857 days. The long delays in some categories could contribute to potentially misleading information which might have adverse effects on clinical decisions in patient care and on research design.

CONCLUSION

Rate of retraction varies across research topics and further studies are needed to explore this relationship.

Retracted Covid-19 articles: significantly more cited than other articles within their journal of origin

With the expansion of research volume, coinciding with the age of the internet, the retraction of published papers from scientific journals has become crucial to preserving scientific integrity. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, both public and professional interest in scientific literature has grown as people attempt to educate themselves on the virus. The Retraction Watch Database COVID-19 blog was accessed in June and November of 2022 and analyzed to ensure articles met inclusion criteria. Articles were then accessed on Google Scholar and the Scopus database to find number of citations and SJR/CiteScore. The average SJR and CiteScore for a journal that published one of the articles was 1.531 and 7.3 respectively. The retracted articles were cited an average of 44.8 times, which was significantly higher than the average CiteScore (p = 0.01). Between June and November, retracted COVID-19 articles gained a total of 728 new citations, presence of "withdrawn" or "retracted" before article title did not affect citation rates. COPE guidelines for retraction statements were not met for 32% of articles. We believe retracted COVID-19 publications may have been more likely to include bold claims that garnered a disproportionately high amount of attention within the scientific community. Additionally, we found many journals were not forthright with explanations for why articles had been retracted. Retractions could be a tool used to add to the scientific discourse, but currently we are only getting half the data, the what and not the why.