A Sage journal that holds the distinction of highest number of retracted articles in the Retraction Watch Database likely made in excess of $400,000 in revenue from those papers, by our calculations.
We reported in April that the Journal of Intelligent and Fuzzy Systems (JIFS) had retracted 1,561 articles as part of a cleanup operation on likely paper mill activity. The journal, which Sage acquired in November 2023 when it bought IOS Press, had previously retracted a batch of 49 articles in October 2021. That brings its retraction total up to 1,610.
Commenters on the April article pointed out the journal charges a fee for all accepted papers; separate fees apply for open access. We followed up on that with a few questions for Sage.
Retraction Watch cofounders Adam Marcus and Ivan Oransky accept the award.
Retraction Watch has been honored with the Council of Science Editors’ highest honor: The 2025 Award for Meritorious Achievement.
CSE gives the award each year to an organization or individual who has made “significant contributions” toward the goal of CSE, “namely, the improvement of scientific communication through the pursuit of high standards in all activities connected with editing.”
We were honored to be at the CSE Annual Meeting in Minneapolis today to accept the award. Below is a lightly edited version of our acceptance speech.
A researcher at the Environmental Protection Agency added their underage child as a coauthor on a paper after the manuscript cleared the agency’s internal review, an investigation found.
The revelation, which calls into question the EPA’s process for reviewing papers, was among several highlighted by the agency’s Office of Inspector General in an April 8 report, which is redacted for names and identifying details.
The report cites specific concerns regarding the researcher, including that their child listed the paper among their accomplishments on college applications. These and other authorship practices revealed deeper issues with the review system at the EPA’s Office of Research and Development (ORD), which the report found “lacks oversight.” The OIG recommended the office take steps to address shortcomings, as the collaborations “remained unchecked” for “several years.”
A cancer researcher who was once the subject of a misconduct investigation at an Illinois university more than 10 years ago has made his debut on the Retraction Watch Leaderboard with 35 retractions.
Last month Oncogene, a Springer Nature title, retracted 15 articles by Jasti Rao, formerly of the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria. A 2014 university investigation into his lab’s publications found manipulation and rotation of images that “‘show a disturbing pattern’ indicative that Rao acted intentionally or recklessly,” we previously reported. Rao sued the university for wrongful termination but lost.
More than 100 of Rao’s papers have comments on PubPeer, most originating from a user called Lotus azoricus. We now know that pseudonym belongs to sleuth Elisabeth Bik.
A university and a publisher are teaming up to combat paper mills in a unique way: By enlisting a Ph.D. candidate.
In April, the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) at Leiden University in the Netherlands announced it would be collaborating with Wiley to establish a four-year research position focused on paper mills.
“Of course one Ph.D. will not fix the problem,” said Cyril Labbé of Grenoble Alpes University in France, whose lab hosted a Ph.D. student in 2014 to detect computer-generated manuscripts. “But going this way is far more constructive than resorting to empty rhetoric and wooden language, as some publishers tend to do.”
A correction to a clinical trial on a potential treatment for COVID-19 has taken more than a year — and counting — to get published. In the meantime, the article remains marked with an expression of concern that appeared in February 2024.
The Lancet Regional Health–Americas published the study, a randomized clinical trial of the effect of metformin on hospitalization rates among COVID-19 patients, in December 2021. It has been cited 36 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science, 12 of those since the publication of the expression of concern.
In December 2023, the authors “identified small errors in the statistical analysis primary outcome,” corresponding author Edward Mills, a health research methods professor at McMaster University, in Hamilton, Ontario, told Retraction Watch. “We immediately re-ran the analysis and submitted as an erratum,” he said.
The university ethics committee that reviewed a controversial study that deployed AI-generated posts on a Reddit forum made recommendations the researchers did not heed, Retraction Watch has learned.
The principal investigator on the study has received a formal warning, and the university’s ethics committees will implement a more rigorous review process for future studies, a university official said.
As we reported yesterday, researchers at the University of Zurich tested whether a large language model, or LLM, can persuade people to change their minds by posting messages on the Reddit subforum r/ChangeMyView (CMV). The moderators of the forum notified the subreddit about the study and their interactions with the researchers in a post published April 26.
Note: We’ve published a new story with the University of Zurich’s response, as well as comments from Reddit’s chief legal officer.
An experiment deploying AI-generated messages on a Reddit subforum has drawn criticism for, among other critiques, a lack of informed consent from unknowing participants in the community.
The university overseeing the research is standing by its approval of the study, but has indicated the principal investigator has received a warning for the project.
The subreddit, r/ChangeMyView (CMV), invites people to post a viewpoint or opinion to invite conversation from different perspectives. Its extensive rules are intended to keep discussions civil.
The Canadian National Breast Screening Study conducted in the 1980s and led by researchers at the University of Toronto evaluated the efficacy of breast cancer screening in reducing mortality from breast cancer. Because the research was supposedly a “gold standard” randomized controlled trial, its results, published in academicjournals and reported in the media, have influenced public perceptions and informedpolicy on mammography screeningin several countries.
However, over the past decades, flaws in this study have come to light. My colleagues and I learned of failures in randomization, and we and otherresearchers have found other serious problems. We think these flaws strongly suggest the publications of CNBSS results should be retracted. Despite being informed of the flaws in this study in 2021, the University of Toronto has not adequately or appropriately addressed these issues.
The CNBSS was configured as two separate randomized clinical trials, one for women in their 40s at entry and the other for women in their 50s. In CNBSS1, 50,000 women ages 40-49 were supposedly randomly assigned to the intervention arm, in which they would receive up to five annual screens with two view film mammography plus clinical breast examination by a nurse, or to the control arm, where they received a single clinical examination at entry and usual care (essentially, no screening) afterwards. In CNBSS2 for 40,000 women, the randomization was between the intervention of mammography plus a clinical breast exam versus clinical exam only.
