Mattoon Ellie Rose, Casadevall Arturo, Fang Ferric C
Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA.
Departments of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology and Microbiology, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, USA.
J Law Med Ethics. 2025 Apr 14:1-7. doi: 10.1017/jme.2025.33.
Retracted research publications reached an all-time high in 2023, and COVID-19 publications may have higher retraction rates than other publications. To better understand the impact of COVID-19 on the research literature, we analyzed 244 retracted publications related to COVID-19 in the PubMed database and the reasons for their retraction. Peer-review manipulation (18.4%) and error (20.9%) were the most common reasons for retraction, with time to retraction occurring far more quickly than in the past (13.2 mos, compared with 32.9 mos in a 2012 study). Publications focused on controversial topics were retracted rapidly (mean time to retraction 10.8 mos) but continued to receive media attention, suggesting that retraction alone may be insufficient to prevent the spread of scientific misinformation. More than half of the retractions resulted from problems that could have been detected prior to publication, including compromise of the peer review process, plagiarism, authorship issues, lack of ethics approvals, or journal errors, suggesting that more robust screening and peer review by journals can help to mitigate the recent rise in retractions.
2023年，被撤回的研究出版物数量达到历史最高水平，与新冠疫情相关的出版物的撤稿率可能高于其他出版物。为了更好地理解新冠疫情对研究文献的影响，我们分析了PubMed数据库中244篇与新冠疫情相关的被撤回出版物及其撤稿原因。同行评审操纵（18.4%）和错误（20.9%）是最常见的撤稿原因，撤稿所需时间比过去快得多（13.2个月，而2012年的一项研究为32.9个月）。关注争议性话题的出版物撤稿迅速（撤稿平均时间为10.8个月），但仍继续受到媒体关注，这表明仅靠撤稿可能不足以阻止科学错误信息的传播。超过一半的撤稿是由出版前本可发现的问题导致的，包括同行评审过程受到损害、抄袭、作者身份问题、缺乏伦理批准或期刊错误，这表明期刊进行更严格的筛选和同行评审有助于缓解近期撤稿数量的上升。
