Ever curious which retracted papers have been most cited by other scientists? Below, we present the list of the 10 most highly cited retractions as of December 2020. Readers will see some familiar entries, such as the infamous Lancet paper by Andrew Wakefield that originally suggested a link between autism and childhood vaccines. You’ll note that several papers — including the #2 most cited paper — received more citations after they were retracted, which research has shown is an ongoing problem.
| Article | Year of retraction | Citing Articles before retraction | Citing Articles after retraction | Total cites (journals indexed by Web of Science) |
| 1. Primary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease with a Mediterranean Diet. N ENGL J MED; APR 2013.
Estruch R, Ros E, Salas-Salvado J, Covas MI, Corella, D, Aros F, Gomez-Gracia E, Ruiz-Gutiérrez V, Fiol M, Lapetra J, Lamuela-Raventos RM, Serra-Majem L, Pinto X, Basora J, Munoz MA, Sorli JV, Martinez JA, Martinez-Gonzalez MA, et al., for the PREDIMED Study Investigators |
2018 | 1919 | 816 | 2735 |
| 2. Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children. LANCET; FEB 28 1998.
Wakefield AJ, Murch SH, Anthony A, Linnell J, Casson DM, Malik M, Berelowitz M, Dhillon AP, Thomson MA, Harvey P, Valentine A, Davies SE, Walker-Smith JA |
2010 | 642 | 867 | 1509 |
| 3. Visfatin: A protein secreted by visceral fat that mimics the effects of insulin. SCIENCE; JAN 2005.
Fukuhara A, Matsuda M, Nishizawa M, Segawa K, Tanaka M, Kishimoto K, Matsuki Y, Murakami M, Ichisaka T, Murakami H, Watanabe E, Takagi T, Akiyoshi M, Ohtsubo T, Kihara S, Yamashita S, Makishima M, Funahashi T, Yamanaka S, Hiramatsu R, Matsuzawa Y, Shimomura I. |
2007 | 232 | 1192 | 1424 |
| 4. An enhanced transient expression system in plants based on suppression of gene silencing by the p19 protein of tomato bushy stunt virus. PLANT J; MAR 2003.
Voinnet O, Rivas S, Mestre P, Baulcombe D. |
2015 | 896 | 375 | 1271 |
| 5. Lysyl oxidase is essential for hypoxia-induced metastasis. NATURE; APR 2006.
Erler JT, Bennewith KL, Nicolau M, Dornhöfer N, Kong C, Le QT, Chi JT, Jeffrey SS, Giaccia AJ. |
2020 | 977 | 81 | 1058 |
| 6. TREEFINDER: a powerful graphical analysis environment for molecular phylogenetics. BMC EVOL BIOL; JUN 2004.
Jobb G, von Haeseler A, Strimmer K. |
2015 | 836 | 158 | 994 |
| 7. Cardiac stem cells in patients with ischaemic cardiomyopathy (SCIPIO): initial results of a randomised phase 1 trial. LANCET, NOV 2011.
Bolli R, Chugh AR, D’Amario D, Loughran JH, Stoddard MF, Ikram S, Beache GM, Wagner SG, Leri A, Hosoda T, Sanada F, Elmore JB, Goichberg P, Cappetta D, Solankhi NK, Fahsah I, Rokosh DG, Slaughter MS, Kajstura J, Anversa P. |
2019 | 917 | 71 | 988 |
| 8. Purification and ex vivo expansion of postnatal human marrow mesodermal progenitor cells. BLOOD; NOV 2001.
Reyes M, Lund T, Lenvik T, Aguiar D, Koodie L, Verfaillie CM. |
2009 | 596 | 315 | 911 |
| 9. Viral pathogenicity determinants are suppressors of transgene silencing in Nicotiana benthamiana. EMBO J; NOV 1998.
Brigneti G, Voinnet O, Li WX, Ji LH, Ding SW, Baulcombe DC |
2015 | 788 | 67 | 855 |
| 10. Selective killing of cancer cells by a small molecule targeting the stress response to ROS. NATURE: JUL 2011.
Raj L, Ide T, Gurkar AU, Foley M, Schenone M, Li X, Tolliday NJ, Golub TR, Carr SA, Shamji AF, Stern AM, Mandinova A, Schreiber SL, Lee SW. |
2018 | 617 | 172 | 789 |
Note: To obtain the number of citations before and after a retraction was issued, we relied on the “Citation index” portion of Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science (WoS), which only adds up the number of citations from journals indexed by the WoS Core Collection. Therefore, the citation count using just those two values can be lower than the total citation count for each article listed by WoS. Those eagle-eyed readers may notice that the column headings have been changed slightly; this was to better reflect the criteria causing the discrepancy in total counts.