Over the past decade, furtive commercial entities around the world have industrialized the production, sale and dissemination of false school research. These paperwork take advantage by undermining the literature on which all the doctors to engineers count to make decisions on human life.
It is extremely difficult To master exactly the size of the problem. About 55,000 learned items were retracted to dateFor various reasons, but scientists and businesses that Screen scientific literature for revealing fraud signs estimate that there are many more false papers that circulate – perhaps as much as Several hundred thousand. This false research can confuse legitimate researchers who must travel dense equations, evidence, images and methodologies, to note that they have been composed.
Even when false papers are identified – generally by amateur detectives at their own pace – university journals are often slow to retract The articles, allowing articles to defile what many consider to be sacro-saint: the vast global library of university work which introduces new ideas, magazines and other research and discusses the results.
These false articles slow down research that has helped millions of people with drugs and vital therapies, from CAVID-19 cancer. Analysts’ data show that the fields linked to cancer and medicine are particularly affected, while areas such as philosophy and art are less affected.
To better understand the scope, ramifications and potential solutions of this metastasis assault on science, we – a contributory publisher to Retraction watchA website that falls with retractions of scientific articles and related subjects, and two computer scientists from France Toulouse III University – Paul Sabatier And Grenoble Alpes University WHO specializes in the detection of false publications – spent six months investigating paper factories.
The co-author Guillaume Cabanac also developed the Problematic paper screenwhich Filters 130 million new and old learned documents Each week in search Nine types of indices Whether paper can be false or contain errors.
Paper screen problem: trawling for fraud in scientific literature
A dark molecule
Frank Cackowski At the Wayne State University of Detroit was confused.
The oncologist studied a sequence of chemical reactions in cells to see if they could be a target for prostate cancer drugs. A 2018 paper In the American Journal of Cancer Research, stung his interest when he read that a little -known molecule called SNHG1 could interact with the chemical reactions he explored. He and his colleague researcher from Wayne’s State Steven Zielske started experiences but found no link.
Meanwhile, Zielske had become suspicious of paper. Two graphics showing the results for different cell lines were identical, he noticed, which “would be like pouring water into two glasses with your eyes closed and the levels that go out exactly the same way”. Another graphic and a table of the article also inexplicably contained identical data.
Zielske described His reluctance in an anonymous position in 2020 at PublishAn online forum where many scientists signal a potential research fault and have also contacted the editor -in -chief of the journal. The newspaper pulled the paper, Quoting “falsified and / or data materials”.
“Science is already quite difficult, because people are really authentic and try to do a real job,” said Cackowski, who also works at the Karmanos Cancer Institute in Michigan.
Amy Sacka,, CC by-ND
The legitimate academic journals evaluate articles before the publication by making the field of other researchers in the field. But this peer examination process is far from perfect. The examiners offer their time, generally assume that research is real and therefore do not seek fraud.
Some publishers can try to Choose the criticisms that they deem more likely to accept the articlesBecause the rejection of a manuscript can mean losing thousands of dollars in publication costs.
Worse, some corrupt scientists are formed Peer exams. Papeteries can create False peers criticism. Others can bribe publishers or Factory agents on newspaper editorial committees.
An “absolutely huge” problem
It is not known when the paper mills started to operate on a large scale. The first article suspected of suspected paper was published in 2004, According to the retraction monitoring databasewhich details the retractions and is exploited by the Center for Scientific Integrity, the non -profit organization parent of the retraction watch.
An analysis of 53,000 articles subject to six publishers – but not necessarily published – found 2% to 46% Suspects suspicious in magazines. The American publisher Wiley, who retracted More than 11,300 articles And closed 19 journals strongly affected in its old Hindawi division, said its new paper detection tool flags up to 1 out of 7 submissions.
Up to 2% Of the several million scientific works published in 2022, were crushed, according to Adam Day, who directs Clear Skies, a London company which develops tools to identify false papers. Some areas are worse than others: biology and medicine are closer to 3%, and certain sub-domains, such as cancer, can be much more important, said Day.
The problem of butterfly paper is “absolutely huge,” said Sabina AlamDirector of publication of ethics and integrity at Taylor & Francis, a major university publisher. In 2019, none of the 175 cases of ethics increased from his team about the paper mills, said Alam. Ethics cases include submissions and articles already published. “We had nearly 4,000 cases” in 2023, she said. “And half of these papers were paper mills.”
Jennifer Byrne, an Australian scientist who is now heading A research group to improve the reliability of medical research,, testified During a House of US Representatives in July 2022, learning that almost 6% of the 12,000 cancer research documents were projected for errors that could report an involvement of the paper plant. Byrne closed its cancer research laboratory in 2017 Because the genes, she spent two decades looking for and writing on the target of false papers.
In 2022, Byrne and his colleagues, including two of us, found that research on suspicious genetics, although he did not immediately assign care to patients, informs the work of scientistsincluding clinical trials. But publishers are often Docute to retract contaminated papersEven when it was alerted from obvious fraud. We found that 97% of 712 problematic genetic research articles We identified did not remain corrected.
Potential solutions
Cochrane collaboration has a policy excluding suspicious studies from his analyzes of medical evidence and develops a tool To identify problematic medical trials. And the publishers began to Share data and technologies between them to fight against fraud, including image fraud.
Technological startups also offer help. The website Argoslaunched in September 2024 by SawpinAn alert service based in Sparks, Nevada, allows Authors to check Employees for retractions or misconduct. Morressier, a conference and scientific communication company in Berlin, offers Research integrity tools. Paper checking tools include Signalsby research signals based in London and a clear sky ‘ Paper alarm.
But Alam recognizes that the fight against paper mills is not won as long as the demand for the boom in papers remains.
Today’s commercial edition is part of the problem, said Byrne. Cleaning the literature is a large and costly company. “Either we have to monetize corrections such as publishers are paid for their work, or forget about the publishers and do it ourselves,” she said.
There is a fundamental bias in for -profit publishing: “We pay them for accepting articles,” said Bodo Stern, former editor -in -chief of the journal Cell and head of strategic initiatives of Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a Non -profit research organization and a funder in Chevy Chase, Maryland. With Over 50,000 journals On the market, the bad papers were bought long enough to end up finding a house, said Stern.
To avoid this, we could stop paying newspapers to accept articles and consider them as public services which serve a greater good. “We have to pay transparent and rigorous quality control mechanisms,” he said.
The peer review, “should be recognized as a real learned product, as is the original article,” said Stern. And magazines should make all the peers review reports accessible to the public, even for the manuscripts they refuse.
This article is republished from The conversation Under a creative communs license. This is a condensed version. To find out more about how fraudsters in the world full version.