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Research articleOpen access

Misconduct accounts for the majority of retracted scientific publications

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · October 2012

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Summary

Examines more than two thousand retracted biomedical and life-science articles indexed in PubMed and finds that most were withdrawn because of misconduct, including suspected fraud, rather than honest error. It also reports that retractions for fraud had risen sharply over time, highlighting gaps in how retraction notices describe their causes.

Summary written by Sterling IMRES editors. Read the original abstract at the publisher.

Authors

  • Ferric C. FangDepartments of aLaboratory Medicine and; Microbiology, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA 98195;
  • R. Grant SteenMediCC! Medical Communications Consultants, Chapel Hill, NC 27517; and
  • Arturo CasadevallDepartment of Microbiology and Immunology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY 10461

Cite this work

Fang FC, Steen RG, Casadevall A. Misconduct accounts for the majority of retracted scientific publications. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2012;109(42):17028-17033. doi:10.1073/pnas.1212247109

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