Relatively early in the COVID-19 pandemic, three scientific papers were published about the new, highly-contagious virus that have since become notorious. All used fake or suspect patient data, and were either retracted by the prominent medical journals that published them or removed altogether.
We have posted a few items that have pointed to the serious damage done when retracted papers continued to be cited. This permits dodgy/compromised work to continue to influence clinical and other professional practice. Journals need to retract papers that have been found to be compromised and more clearly mark them as having been retracted. Peer reviewers and editors must be on the look out for new papers that cite work that has been retracted. All researchers must be urged to not cite retracted work. Well done Monash University for producing this item.
Even worse, the papers continued to be cited even after being retracted by the journals in question. Retraction is supposed to safeguard against error and misconduct, and should stop bogus or incorrect research from impacting scientific ideas and clinical practice, but that’s not how it played out in these high-profile cases, during a global pandemic.
A new investigation involving Monash University’s health evidence unit, Cochrane Australia – in the School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine – looked at retractions among the more than 270,000 COVID-19 papers that have been lodged online since the start of the pandemic. The 212 retracted papers investigated were cited 2697 times, a median of seven times per paper.
A quarter of these retracted papers reported clinical findings relevant to patient care – almost 90% of citations of these papers referenced the retracted paper without mentioning it had been retracted, and 80% were published after the retraction.
