A Need to Archive Correct Biomedical Scientific Data and to Prevent Continued Citation of Retracted Scientific Publications. (March 2014) - Tchao, Ruy
Abstract : The number of retracted peer reviewed scientific publications in the biomedical field has exponentially increased 15 times since early 2000 while the total number of publications only increased 1.44 times over the same period. Although retractions are rare (only 1 in 5, 000 of all publications), the data and the science propounded by the retracted papers have significant impact because many retracted papers are published in high impact journals and are highly cited by other scientists. The scientific data contained in a retracted paper should be erased from the data bank. Even after retraction, many of these papers continue to be cited or can re-appear in future literature citation after a number of years. Recent analysis shows that in the fields of life science and medicine, 67.4% of the retracted papers are due to misconduct, of which 43.4% are due to fraud or suspected fraud. These flawed papers have high impact on public health and patient care as illustrated here by the cases of Wakefield and Potti. It is suggested here that a more stringent process of publication is necessary, including the review process and author certification of responsible citations of the literature that does not contain retractions.