Misconduct prompts most retractions
Two-thirds of scientific papers pulled from journals are for fraud, suspected fraud and plagiarism
Scientific misconduct — including fraud, suspected fraud and plagiarism — is the reason behind most retractions of papers published in scientific journals, a new study shows.
Only 21.3 percent of biomedical and life sciences studies pulled from scientific journals were withdrawn because honest errors invalidated the findings, researchers report online October 1 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Retraction notices often don’t explain why a study is being withdrawn, or they cover up the real reason for pulling a paper, says study coauthor Arturo Casadevall, a microbiologist at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City and editor of the journal mBio.