A scandal involving years of fabricated Alzheimer’s research and millions in grant money has placed academic practice under a microscope.

When Retraction Watch was set up in 2010 by Adam Marcus and Ivan Oransky, the idea of highlighting academic malfeasance was seen as unusual. Researchers didn’t peddle disinformation: they were the arbiters of truth, and the custodians of society’s collective knowledge.

In the twelve years since, the scales have fallen from our eyes as the scale of academic falsity has been uncovered – through the work of Marcus, Oransky, and a host of others. When they set up Retraction Watch, they believed there were around three retractions published by journals a month. It was actually forty-five. Now it’s closer to 300.

The scale is increasing alongside the severity of the potential fabrication. Just last month, Science published an investigation that alleges dozens of papers looking at Alzheimer’s could contain signs of fabricated information.

It doesn’t surprise Oransky, co-founder of Retraction Watch. “The ways to commit some kind of misconduct are almost becoming industrialized or mechanized,” he says. “They’re certainly capturing a lot of attention now, which is frankly a good thing. But there have been lots of problems in the scientific literature for decades, and you could argue centuries.”