The DOI matches its Crossref record; 13 of the 14 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Why and how do journals retract articles? An analysis of Medline retractions 1988–2008
Open accessAbstract
Background: Journal editors are responsible for what they publish and therefore have a duty to correct the record if published work is found to be unreliable. One method for such correction is retraction of an article. Anecdotal evidence suggested a lack of consistency in journal policies and practices regarding retraction. In order to develop guidelines, we reviewed retractions in Medline to discover how and why articles were retracted. Methods: We retrieved all available Medline retractions from 2005 to 2008 and a one-in-three random selection of those from 1988 to 2004. This yielded 312 retractions (from a total of 870). Details of the retraction including the reason for retraction were recorded by two investigators. Results: Medline retractions have increased sharply since 1980 and currently represent 0.02% of included articles. Retractions were issued by authors (63%), editors (21%), journals (6%), publishers (2%) and institutions (1%). Reasons for retraction included honest error or non-replicable findings (40%), research misconduct (28%), redundant publication (17%) and unstated/unclear (5%). Some of the stated reasons might have been addressed by corrections. Conclusions: Journals' retraction practices are not uniform. Some retractions fail to state the reason, and therefore fail to distinguish error from misconduct. We have used our findings to inform guidelines on retractions.
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“These factors have contributed to the systematic underestimation of the role of misconduct and the overestimation of the role of error in retractions (3, 4), and speak to the need for uniform standards regarding retraction notices (5).”
From Misconduct accounts for the majority of retracted scientific publications (2012) · cites this paper as [5]
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“between 22% and 54% of retractions are due to methodological issues or concerns regarding data, 8-12”
From Evaluating the Accuracy of scite, a Smart Citation Index (2023) · cites this paper as [9]
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“Authors who commit fraud may come up with variables that are too similar for unrelated variables.This can be assessed with coefficients of variation.38”
From Assessing Research Misconduct in Randomized Controlled Trials (2021) · cites this paper as [38]
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Characteristics of retracted open access biomedical literature: A bibliographic analysis
Peterson, G. M. (2013) · Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology · doi:10.1002/asi.22944 · Cited by 22
The Dynamics of Retraction in Epistemic Networks
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“Papers typically are retracted due to error, fraud, or failure to replicate (Wager and Williams, 2011; Steen, 2011; Fang et al., 2012), and retractions have become increasingly common (Cokol et al.”
BackgroundInfluentialAgency and responsibility: A linguistic analysis of culpable acts in retraction notices
Hu, G., & Xu, S. B. (2020) · Lingua · doi:10.1016/j.lingua.2020.102954 · Cited by 21
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Analysis and Implications of Retraction Period and Coauthorship of Fraudulent Publications
Foo, J. Y. A., & Tan, X. J. A. (2013) · Accountability in Research · doi:10.1080/08989621.2013.848799 · Cited by 17
“, 2011) It is believed that the number and frequency of retracted publications are vital indicators of the health of the scholarly world (Steen, 2011; Fang et al., 2012; Wager and Williams, 2011).”
BackgroundInfluentialA Systematic Review of Retractions in the Field of Cardiothoracic and Vascular Anesthesia
Rong, L. Q., Audisio, K., Rahouma, M., Soletti, G. J., Cancelli, G., & Gaudino, M. F. L. (2021) · Journal of Cardiothoracic and Vascular Anesthesia · doi:10.1053/j.jvca.2021.09.005 · Cited by 17
Authorship Issues When Articles are Retracted Due to Research Misconduct and Then Resubmitted
Banerjee, T., Partin, K. M., & Resnik, D. B. (2022) · Science and Engineering Ethics · doi:10.1007/s11948-022-00386-1 · Cited by 16
“…of retracted articles published in scientific journals that has outpaced the steady rise in the total number of publications (Casedevall & Fang, Elango, 2021; Fang et al., 2012; Lievore et al., 2021; Mansourzadeh et al., 2021; Nogueira et al., 2017; Wager & Williams, 2011; Wang et al., 2017).”
BackgroundCorrecting the scientific record on abortion and mental health outcomes
Littell, J. H., Abel, K. M., Biggs, M. A., Blum, R. W., Foster, D. G., Haddad, L. B., Major, B., Munk-Olsen, T., Polis, C. B., Robinson, G. E., et al. (2024) · BMJ · doi:10.1136/bmj-2023-076518 · Cited by 14
Detecting and (Not) Dealing with Plagiarism in an Engineering Paper: Beyond CrossCheck—A Case Study
Zhang, X., Huo, Z.-L., & Zhang, Y.-H. H. (2013) · Science and Engineering Ethics · doi:10.1007/s11948-013-9460-5 · Cited by 17
“The COPE Code of Conduct for editors stated that ‘Editors should be responsible for everything published in their journals’, and ‘always be willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when needed’ (Wager and Williams 2011; COPE 2011).”
BackgroundInfluence of accessibility (open and toll-based) of scholarly publications on retractions
Shah, T. A., Gul, S., Bashir, S., Ahmad, S., Huertas, A., Oliveira, A., Gulzar, F., Najar, A. H., & Chakraborty, K. (2021) · Scientometrics · doi:10.1007/s11192-021-03990-3 · Cited by 16
Perspectives of key stakeholders on essential virtues for good scientific practice in research areas
Tomić, V., Buljan, I., & Marušić, A. (2021) · Accountability in Research · doi:10.1080/08989621.2021.1900739 · Cited by 13
Multiple Publications: The Main Reason for the Retraction of Papers in Computer Science
Hidabi, M. A., & Teh, P. L. (2018) · Advances in intelligent systems and computing · doi:10.1007/978-3-030-03402-3_35 · Cited by 15
Faggion, C. M. (2019) · Journal of Clinical Epidemiology · doi:10.1016/j.jclinepi.2019.07.006 · Cited by 13
Schneider, J., Woods, N. D., Proescholdt, R., Fu, Y., & The RISRS Team (2021) · MetArXiv (OSF Preprints) · doi:10.31222/osf.io/ms579 · Cited by 16
Retracted papers by Iranian authors: causes, journals, time lags, affiliations, collaborations
Ghorbi, A., Fazeli-Varzaneh, M., Ghaderi-Azad, E., Ausloos, M., & Kozak, M. (2021) · Figshare · Cited by 12
Exploring Retraction in Tourism and Hospitality Journals
Alrawadıeh, Z., & Zareer, A. (2019) · European Journal of Tourism Research · doi:10.54055/ejtr.v22i.372 · Cited by 12
“Some authors (e.g. Wager & Williams, 2011) noted that some retractions fail to state the reason underlying the retraction decision and thus fail to distinguish honest error from intentional misconduct.”
BackgroundBoffito, D. C., Patience, C. A., Patience, P. A., Bertrand, F., & Patience, G. S. (2016) · The Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering · doi:10.1002/cjce.22479 · Cited by 12
Publication retraction in spine surgery: a systematic review
Levett, J. J., Elkaim, L. M., Alotaibi, N. M., Weber, M. H., Dea, N., & Abd‐El‐Barr, M. M. (2023) · European Spine Journal · doi:10.1007/s00586-023-07927-7 · Cited by 12
“Journals are responsible for retracting their published articles, however, the retraction process among journals is not uniform [8].”
BackgroundScience Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry? Apologies for Scientific Misconduct
Heßelmann, F., & Reinhart, M. (2019) · Science Communication · doi:10.1177/1075547019860848 · Cited by 13
“Retraction notices exhibit a high variance in form and in content (Wager & Williams, 2011) and are far from uniformly following the format recommended in guidelines such as those of the Committee on Publication Ethics.”
BackgroundRétractations pour erreur et pour fraude
Decullier, É., Samson, G., & Huot, L. (2012) · La Presse Médicale · doi:10.1016/j.lpm.2012.05.006 · Cited by 13
“85 0 Encadré 2 Classification des rétractations selon Elisabeth Wager ; traduction française du tableau I de [22] Erreur de bonne foi (a) basée sur l’utilisation de données incorrectes ou frauduleuses1 (b) survenue au cours de la recherche (par exemple mauvaise lignée cellulaire) (c) erreur de calcul/données inexacte…”
BackgroundInfluentialRetraction of papers authored by Yuhji Saitoh – Beyond the Fujii phenomenon
Saikia, P., & Thakuria, B. (2019) · Indian Journal of Anaesthesia · doi:10.4103/ija.ija_267_19 · Cited by 13
“[11,12] Absence of external or internal guidance may be some of the reasons for disparities in retraction policies.[11] The first guideline by COPE for retraction was published in 2009.”
Evaluating the Accuracy of scite, a Smart Citation Index
Bakker, C., Theis-Mahon, N., & Brown, S. J. (2023) · Hypothesis: Research Journal for Health Information Professionals · doi:10.18060/26528 · Cited by 10
Why unethical papers should be retracted
Bülow, W., Godskesen, T., Helgesson, G., & Eriksson, S. (2020) · Journal of Medical Ethics · doi:10.1136/medethics-2020-106140 · Cited by 10
Motivating and Maintaining Ethics, Equity, Effectiveness, Efficiency, and Expertise in Peer Review
Brain Health Alliance, Craig, A., Lee, C., Bala, N., & Taswell, C. (2022) · Brainiacs Journal of Brain Imaging And Computing Sciences · doi:10.48085/i5b147d9d · Cited by 13
“While journals vary in their criteria for and approach to retracting papers, the general goal has been to revoke the past acceptance of a published, peer-reviewed article and alert readers of any necessary correction to the record of scholarly literature (Wager and Williams, 2011).”
BackgroundResultInfluentialLife Sciences for Philosophers and Philosophy for Life Scientists: What Should We Teach?
Boniolo, G., & Campaner, R. (2019) · Biological Theory · doi:10.1007/s13752-019-00333-7 · Cited by 15
Jan, R. (2024) · Advances in Educational Technologies and Instructional Design · doi:10.4018/979-8-3693-0884-4.ch014 · Cited by 9
Mapping nine decades of research integrity studies (1935–2024): A scientometric analysis
Tang, G. (2025) · Accountability in Research · doi:10.1080/08989621.2025.2470860 · Cited by 13
“After 2010, issues related to retractions became a central focus, with numerous burst references discussing various aspects of this topic (Fang and Casadevall 2011; Grieneisen and Zhang 2012; Steen 2011; Van Noorden 2011; Wager and Williams 2011).”
Declaración de transparencia para las publicaciones científicas
Catalá-López, F., Hutton, B., & Moher, D. (2014) · Medicina Clínica · doi:10.1016/j.medcli.2014.01.035 · Cited by 8
The Year in Cardiothoracic and Vascular Anesthesia: Selected Highlights from 2012
Ramakrishna, H., Reidy, C. M., Říha, H., Sophocles, A., Lane, B. J., Patel, P. A., Andritsos, M. J., Ghadimi, K., & Augoustides, J. G. (2013) · Journal of Cardiothoracic and Vascular Anesthesia · doi:10.1053/j.jvca.2012.10.010 · Cited by 9
Ortega, J. L., & Delgado‐Quirós, L. (2023) · El Profesional de la Informacion · doi:10.3145/epi.2023.ene.18 · Cited by 11
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“Misconduct retractions (including plagiarism, duplicate publication, data fabrication, and ethical issues) counted for 45% of Medline retractions between 1988 and 2008 [12].”
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Alexander, R. L., Peterson, C., Yang, S., & NUGENT, K. M. (2023) · Accountability in Research · doi:10.1080/08989621.2023.2272246 · Cited by 10
“…Cokol, Ozbay, and Rodriguez-Esteban 2008; Fanelli 2013; Grieneisen, Zhang, and von Elm 2012; He 2013; Lu et al. 2013; Moylan and Kowalczuk 2016; Steen, Casadevall, and Fang 2013a; Wager and Williams 2011; Wang et al. 2017), but this may not reflect increasing rates of misconduct (Fanelli 2013).”
The Ethics of Ironic Science in Its Search for Spoof
Ronagh, M., & Souder, L. (2014) · Science and Engineering Ethics · doi:10.1007/s11948-014-9619-8 · Cited by 8
A study exploring attributes and nature of the retracted literature on mental disorders
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“The COPE survey of Medline retractions from 1988 to 2004 reported that 28% of the retractions were due to research misconduct (including fabrication or falsification of data) (72).”
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Retractions in academic publishing: insights from highly ranked global universities
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“…2011; Hesselmann et al., 2017; Hopf et al., 2019; Lu et al., 2013) and questionable research practices (Gopalakrishna et al., 2022) have exhibited a steady increase since the 1970s, accelerating notably between 2000 and 2011 (Brembs et al., 2013; Grie-neisen & Zhang, 2012; Wager & Williams, 2011).”
Minetto, S., Zanirato, M., Makieva, S., Marzanati, D., Esposito, S., Pisaturo, V., Costa, M., Candiani, M., Papaleo, E., & Alteri, A. (2023) · Frontiers in Public Health · doi:10.3389/fpubh.2023.1210951 · Cited by 7
A systematic review of ENT retractions
Traglia, R. D., Dunne, H., Tysome, J. R., & Smith, M. E. (2024) · European Archives of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology · doi:10.1007/s00405-024-08980-8 · Cited by 7
“The US Office of Research Integrity in the Department of Health and Human Services, COPE and the Retraction Watch, have all sought to raise awareness of retraction and encourage accountability and research integrity among journals and researchers alike [2, 10, 11].”
InfluentialKovács, M., Varga, M. A., Dianovics, D., Poldrack, R. A., & Aczél, B. (2024) · Royal Society Open Science · doi:10.1098/rsos.240844 · Cited by 6
“A later study that was conducted using the same database used a more detailed classification method and showed that 40% of the retractions were due to honest errors on the part of the authors (such as analysing the wrong cell line or using incorrect data) or non-replicable findings [7].”
Gaus, N., Jasruddin, J., Saleh, A., Resnawaty, R., Paramma, M. A., & Tanjung, Y. (2021) · Higher Education Quarterly · doi:10.1111/hequ.12350 · Cited by 14
Evaluation of retracted publications in Dentistry: A systematic review
Wadgave, U., & Khairnar, M. (2022) · Indian Journal of Medical Ethics · doi:10.20529/ijme.2022.021 · Cited by 7
“Similar findings were also observed in retracted publications of other specialities [6, 20, 21].”
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“For example, some journals fail to distinguish scientific error from misconduct [81] or they report plagiarism as a significant originality issue [68].”
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Cuenca, G. M., Oliván, J. A. S., & Avilés, R. A. (2019) · El Profesional de la Informacion · doi:10.3145/epi.2019.mar.22 · Cited by 8
Retractions of research papers by authors from the Arab region (1998-2018)
AlRyalat, S. A., Azzam, M., Massad, A., & Alqatawneh, D. (2020) · European Science Editing · doi:10.3897/ese.2020.e51002 · Cited by 11
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“In contrast, an estimated 21% – 62% of retractions are related to unintentional errors [2,4,14,17,18,20,25]; the large range may be due in part to the difficulty of inferring authors ’ intentions from retraction notices.”
InfluentialDo male leading authors retract more articles than female leading authors?
Zheng, E., Fu, H., Thelwall, M. A., & Fang, Z. (2025) · Journal of Informetrics · doi:10.1016/j.joi.2025.101682 · Cited by 8
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Self-citationHelping reviewers assess statistical analysis: A case study from analytic methods
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Brumback, R. A. (2012) · Journal of Evidence-Based Complementary & Alternative Medicine · doi:10.1177/2156587211428322 · Cited by 7
“Therefore, it is no wonder that the integrity of science is more often being questioned and that there has been heightened scrutiny of published literature along with a dramatic rise in the number of articles that must be retracted (Figure 1).(57-66) So, where does this leave a journal such as the Journal of Evidence-…”
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Alnaimat, F., Al-Halaseh, S., AlZoubi, L., Khraisat, B., & Nassar, O. M. H. A. (2024) · Rheumatology International · doi:10.1007/s00296-024-05723-0 · Cited by 5
“This lack of clarity is significant since scientific misconduct and honest errors can lead to retractions [35].”
InfluentialMea Culpa: Scientific Misconduct
Hall, R. I. (2012) · Journal of Cardiothoracic and Vascular Anesthesia · doi:10.1053/j.jvca.2011.12.003 · Cited by 5
Sebo, P., & Sebo, M. (2025) · Accountability in Research · doi:10.1080/08989621.2025.2465621 · Cited by 6
“…previous studies highlighting the prevalence of retractions in scholarly literature, whether in the biomedical sciences or other disciplines (Fang, Steen, and Casadevall 2012; Grieneisen and Zhang 2012; Lievore et al. 2021; Ribeiro and Vasconcelos 2018; Steen et al. 2013; Wager and Williams 2011).”
RetractedPublishing ethics and integrity
Wager, E. (2012) · Elsevier eBooks · doi:10.1016/b978-1-84334-669-2.50014-7 · Cited by 5
Self-citationMoulton, L. J., Michener, C. M., Levinson, K. L., Cobb, L. P., Tseng, J. H., & Jernigan, A. M. (2017) · Gynecologic Oncology · doi:10.1016/j.ygyno.2017.06.034 · Cited by 5
Systematic examination of post‐ and pre‐citation of Indian‐authored retracted papers
Palla, I. A., Singson, M., & Thiyagarajan, S. (2023) · Learned Publishing · doi:10.1002/leap.1572 · Cited by 7
“In the past few decades, there has been a considerable increase in the retraction of scienti fi c papers across the globe (Brainard & You, 2018; Marco-Cuenca et al., 2021; Wager & Williams, 2011).”
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An Assessment of Retractions as a Measure of Scientific Misconduct and Impact on Public Health Risks
Abritis, A. J. (2015) · Digital Commons - University of South Florida (University of South Florida) · Cited by 5
Why Correcting the Literature with Errata and Retractions is Good Medical Practice?
Allahbadia, G. N. (2014) · The Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology of India · doi:10.1007/s13224-014-0643-z · Cited by 5
“The incidence of literature corrections, whether in the form of errata or retractions, in medical research is low, but the numbers have been increasing [2–4].”
BackgroundLi, W., & Mol, B. W. (2019) · BJOG An International Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology · doi:10.1111/1471-0528.15829 · Cited by 5
Toma, C., Padureanu, L., & Toma, B. (2022) · Publications · doi:10.3390/publications10020018 · Cited by 6
Retractions in primary care journals (2000–2022)
Sebo, P. (2023) · Scientometrics · doi:10.1007/s11192-023-04850-y · Cited by 7
“Second, the reasons for retraction can be classified as either misconduct (mainly data falsification, plagiarism or duplication of articles) or unintentional errors (Fang et al., 2012; Wager & Williams, 2011).”
BackgroundMethodInfluentialBhattacharyya, S., Chatterjee, N., & Ramanathan, A. (2025) · International Journal for Educational Integrity · doi:10.1007/s40979-025-00193-8 · Cited by 4
“Retraction practices in various journals are not uniform and often provide ambiguous information to readers not allowing them to clearly distinguish between errors and mis-conduct (Wager and Williams, 2011).”
REGIONAL AND LOCAL JOURNALS IN THE ACADEMIC ECOSYSTEM
Koçyiğit, B. F., Aukenov, N., Yessirkepov, M., & Nurmashev, B. (2025) · Central Asian Journal of Medical Hypotheses and Ethics · doi:10.47316/cajmhe.2025.6.4.01 · Cited by 4
Nag, S. N., Roy, A., & Sudhier, K. G. (2025) · Global Knowledge, Memory and Communication · doi:10.1108/gkmc-09-2024-0582 · Cited by 4
Correcting the scientific record
Lin, Y. (2023) · Pragmatics and Society · doi:10.1075/ps.22008.lin · Cited by 4
Namuth, A., Brown, M., Macchione, A. L., & Sacco, D. F. (2023) · ETHICS IN PROGRESS · doi:10.14746/eip.2023.2.4 · Cited by 4
Endoscopic sphincterotomy for adults with biliary sphincter of Oddi dysfunction
Naing, C. M., Ni, H., Aung, H. H., & Pavlov, C. S. (2024) · Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews · doi:10.1002/14651858.cd014944.pub2 · Cited by 3
D’Angelo, C. A. (2024) · Journal of Data and Information Science · doi:10.2478/jdis-2025-0005 · Cited by 7
Systematic Reviewers Have an Obligation to Promote Research Integrity
Bero, L. A. (2025) · The Journal of Law Medicine & Ethics · doi:10.1017/jme.2025.34 · Cited by 4
“15 Thus, the scientific literature is already populated with problematic studies.”
Catalá-López, F., Peiró, S., Hutton, B., Andrés, C. P., & Moher, D. (2014) · Revista Española de Salud Pública · doi:10.4321/s1135-57272014000200001 · Cited by 4
“Research exceptionalism” in the COVID-19 pandemic: an analysis of scientific retractions in Scopus
Rubbo, P., Lievore, C., dos Santos, C. B., Picinin, C. T., Pìlatti, L. A., & Pedroso, B. (2022) · Ethics & Behavior · doi:10.1080/10508422.2022.2080067 · Cited by 5
“Wager and Williams (2011) analyzed retractions in the Medline database from 1988 to 2008 and identified that the most common reasons for retractions were: error (28%), redundant publication (17%), plagiarism (16%), and irreproducible results (11%).”
BackgroundCross-cultural differences in retracted publications of male and female from a global perspective
Li, S., Xu, W., & Yin, J. (2023) · Scientometrics · doi:10.1007/s11192-023-04717-2 · Cited by 6
“Firstly, regarding the nature of the retractions, most of the retractions can be viewed as typical deliberate fraud (Wager & Williams, 2011).”
BackgroundAn Exploratory Analysis of 4844 Withdrawn Articles and Their Retraction Notes
Toma, C., & Padureanu, L. (2021) · Open Journal of Social Sciences · doi:10.4236/jss.2021.911028 · Cited by 4
Kim, Y. S., & Han, D. S. (2020) · Science Editing · doi:10.6087/kcse.215 · Cited by 4
Validitas ReferensiPreprint
Wekke, I. S. (2019) · doi:10.31227/osf.io/c4z5t · Cited by 4
Scientific misconduct during the pandemic: Retractions in the field of COVID-19
Shueb, S., Abdullah, Y., Gul, S., & Gulzar, R. (2025) · Journal of Information Science · doi:10.1177/01655515251315423 · Cited by 3
Do Journalists Update Retracted Science News?
Valinčiūtė, A., & Halffman, W. (2025) · Journalism Practice · doi:10.1080/17512786.2025.2540460 · Cited by 4
“Some studies suggest that papers are mostly retracted for computational, methodological, and other types of mistakes that compromise scientific findings (Steen, 2011; Wager & Williams, 2011).”
Kinésithérapie la Revue 2001–2016 : typologie des contenus Revue systématique
Gedda, M. (2018) · Kinésithérapie la Revue · doi:10.1016/j.kine.2018.07.001 · Cited by 3
Chen, C. (2013) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-1-4471-5128-9_8 · Cited by 5
An increase in retractions of research publications is an issue for Medical Physics
Baldock, C., Basran, P. S., & Zaidi, H. (2020) · Medical Physics · doi:10.1002/mp.14550 · Cited by 3
“They are caused by issues such as human error in data collection, failure to reproduce results, issues with data provenance, research protocol violations, fallouts from public pressure, undervaluing the influence socio-economic inequities, and even politics.(14,15) Retractions can provide a means of making research mo…”
BackgroundResearch Retraction and Its Communication
Xu, S. B., & Hu, G. (2023) · Advances in information quality and management · doi:10.4018/978-1-6684-7366-5.ch030 · Cited by 3
Amiri, M., & Sotudeh, H. (2025) · Scientometrics · doi:10.1007/s11192-025-05231-3 · Cited by 3
“Retraction occurs when a paper is formally withdrawn—by editors or at the request of authors—due to errors, misconduct, or other issues compromising its validity (Haunschild & Bornmann, 2021; Shahraki-Mohammadi et al., 2024; Shim-ray, 2022; Wager & Williams, 2011).”
Sebo, P. (2025) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0335059 · Cited by 3
“Although retractions remain relatively rare [2,3,8,9], their impact can be substantial, particularly in high-impact medical journals where retracted findings may have already influenced clinical practice or policy.”
Proporción y distribución de erratas en publicaciones científicas
Pichardo-Corpus, J. A., Contreras, J. G., & de la Peña, J. A. (2019) · Investigación Bibliotecológica Archivonomía Bibliotecología e Información · doi:10.22201/iibi.24488321xe.2019.80.58000 · Cited by 3
Joaquim, S., Longhini, J., & Palese, A. (2022) · PubMed Central · doi:10.23750/abm.v93is2.12954 · Cited by 3
“However, stating the reason for the retraction is fundamental, allowing authors who have acted responsibly in informing the journal of problems with their work to not be stigmatised along with those who have made mistakes as a result of misconduct (2).”
BackgroundMethodInfluentialHonesty is the best policy: A brief overview of retraction notices
Menezes, R. G., Ram, P., Fatima, H., & Sathian, B. (2017) · Nepal Journal of Epidemiology · doi:10.3126/nje.v6i4.17253 · Cited by 3
Publish first, retract later. Is it time for introspection?
Ranjan, C. K. (2018) · Medical Journal Armed Forces India · doi:10.1016/j.mjafi.2018.03.003 · Cited by 3
“) has been reported to be the most common reason for retraction of published articles accounting for 28–76% of cases.(1,2,4,8,9) Clearly, authors and to a great extent even journal editors need to be held responsible for such misdemeanours.”
BackgroundCharacteristics of retracted systematic reviews and meta-analyses in the biomedical literaturePreprint
TAO, W., Yong-Hong, L., & Xing, Q.-R. (2020) · doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-45086/v1 · Cited by 3
Editorial: can the retraction of articles endanger the mental health of researchers?
SeyedAlinaghi, S., Gholami, S., & Mehraeen, E. (2024) · Journal of Mental Health · doi:10.1080/09638237.2024.2417284 · Cited by 4
“In recent years, reports have indicated that most retraction cases arise from honest errors or non-replicable findings (Steen, 2011; Wager & Williams, 2011).”
Trends in Retraction of Orthopaedic Research Articles
Guirguis, P. G., Punreddy, A., Botros, M., Raiford, M. E., Humphrey, C. A., Gorczyca, J. T., & Ketz, J. P. (2024) · Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery · doi:10.2106/jbjs.24.00591 · Cited by 2
“Various studies have found that the number of retracted articles across all fi elds has dramatically increased in the last few decades due to an increase in the identi fi cation of errors in previously published articles and in the number of fl awed articles that are being published 7,16-26 .”
An analysis of availability and implications of unlabeled retracted articles on Sci-Hub
Biju, V. V., Jose, S., Franklin, J., & Jasimudeen, S. (2025) · Accountability in Research · doi:10.1080/08989621.2024.2446558 · Cited by 3
“Table 4 illustrates that the present study aligns with previous research confirming that retractions are prevalent across various disciplines (Wager and Williams 2011).”
Music-based interventions for people with chronic kidney disease undergoing haemodialysis
Nishiwaki, H., Levack, W., Hasegawa, T., Ota, E., Noma, H., Suzuki, T., Watanabe, Y., Abe, Y., Tomioka, H., Kondo, D., et al. (2025) · Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews · doi:10.1002/14651858.cd016139 · Cited by 2
Walsh, L., Caron, M. M., Lye, C. T., Barnes, M. R., & Bierer, B. E. (2025) · The Journal of Law Medicine & Ethics · doi:10.1017/jme.2025.10150 · Cited by 2
Rétractations dans la recherche biomédicale (2000-présent)
Haiech, J., Noûs, C., & Forest, C. D. (2025) · médecine/sciences · doi:10.1051/medsci/2025162 · Cited by 2
Liu, Y., Yi, L., & Yuan, Z.-H. (2026) · Accountability in Research · doi:10.1080/08989621.2026.2614062 · Cited by 2
“Retraction is a routine procedure used by journals to revoke the publication status of a paper that has already appeared in print or online (Wager and Williams 2011).”
No Shortcuts to Credibility Evaluation
Kavanaugh, J. R., & Lenart, B. A. (2016) · Advances in linguistics and communication studies · doi:10.4018/978-1-5225-1072-7.ch002 · Cited by 2
WAGER, E. (2014) · Journal of Information Processing and Management · doi:10.1241/johokanri.57.443 · Cited by 2
Self-citation
Metadata
- Authors
- Wager, E., & Williams, P.
- Affiliations
- University College London (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Wager, Elizabeth
- Venue
- Journal of Medical Ethics
- Publisher
- BMJ
- Published
- 2011-04-12
- Volume
- 37
- Issue
- 9
- Pages
- 567-570
- ISSN
- 0306-6800 (ISSN-L)
- 1473-4257
- OpenAlex
- W2129970316
- Cited by
- 263
- References
- 14
- Citations by year
- 2026: 13 · 2025: 18 · 2024: 19 · 2023: 20 · 2022: 20 · 2021: 23 · 2020: 17 · 2019: 17 · 2018: 18 · 2017: 21 · 2016: 13 · 2015: 11 · 2014: 19 · 2013: 13 · 2012: 17
- FWCI
- 43.58
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- public-domain
- Locations
- Journal of Medical Ethics (publishedVersion, public-domain)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Education › Academic integrity and plagiarism
- Social Sciences › Library and Information Sciences › Publishing and Scholarly Communication
- Social Sciences › Library and Information Sciences › Academic Publishing and Open Access
- Keywords
- retraction, retraction reasons, research misconduct, duplicate publication, journal editorial policy, MEDLINE, research integrity
- MeSH terms
- Humans, Periodicals as Topic, Publishing, Research, Research Design, Retraction of Publication as Topic, Scientific Misconduct, MEDLINE, Ethics, Research, Editorial Policies, Biomedical Research
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
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