Abstract
Background
Retraction of published research can reduce the dissemination of incorrect or misleading information, but concerns have been raised about the clarity and rigor of the retraction process. Failure to clearly and consistently retract research has several risks, for example discredited or erroneous research may inform health research studies (e.g. clinical trials), policies and practices, potentially rendering these unreliable.
Objective
To investigate consistency and clarity of research retraction, based on a case study of retracted Covid-19 research.
Study design
A cross-sectional study of retracted Covid-19 articles reporting empirical research findings, based on searches of Medline, Embase and Scopus on 10th July and 19th December 2020.
Key results
We included 46 retracted Covid-19 articles. The number eligible for inclusion nearly doubled, from 26 to 46, in five months. Most articles (67%) were retracted from scientific journals and the remainder from preprint servers. Key findings: (1) reasons for retraction were not reported in 33% (15/46) of cases; (2) time from publication to retraction could not be determined in 43% (20/46) of cases; (3) More than half (59%) of retracted Covid-19 articles (27/46) remained available as original unmarked electronic documents after retraction (33% as full text and 26% as an abstract only). Sources of articles post-retraction were preprint servers, ResearchGate and, less commonly, websites including PubMed Central and the World Health Organization. A retracted journal article which controversially claimed a link between 5G technology and Covid-19 remains available in its original full text from at least 60 different websites.
Conclusions
The retraction process is inconsistent and often ambiguous, with more than half of retracted Covid-19 research articles remaining available, unmarked, from a wide range of online sources. There is an urgent need to improve guidance on the retraction process and to extend this to cover preprint servers. We provide structured recommendations to address these concerns and to reduce the risks that arise when retracted research is inappropriately cited.
Publisher
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Reference122 articles.
1. What a massive database of retracted papers reveals about science publishing’s ‘death penalty’;J Brainard;Science,2018
2. Rethinking retractions;J Brainard;Science,2018
3. Retracted Science and the Retraction Index;FC Fang;Infection and Immunity,2011
4. What studies of retractions tell us;A Marcus;Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education,2014
5. Retractions in cancer research: a systematic survey;A Bozzo;Research Integrity and Peer Review,2017
Cited by
27 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献