by Thousands of bogus research papers are being published in journals in an international scandal that is getting worse every year, scientists have warned. Medical research is being compromised, drug development is being hindered and promising academic research is in jeopardy thanks to a global wave of sham science sweeping laboratories and universities.
Last year the annual number of papers withdrawn by research journals reached 10,000 for the first time. Most analysts believe that the figure is only the tip of an iceberg of scientific fraud.
“The situation has become dire,” said Professor Dorothy Bishop at Oxford University. “The level of publication of fraudulent papers is causing serious problems for science. In many areas it is becoming difficult to build a cumulative approach to content, because we do not have a strong foundation of reliable results. And it’s getting worse and worse.”
The alarming rise in the publication of sham scientific papers has its roots in China, where it was necessary for doctors and young scientists to publish scientific papers seeking promotion. Umbrella organizations – known as “paper mills” – then began providing finished works for publication in journals.
The practice has since spread to India, Iran, Russia, the former states of the Soviet Union and eastern Europe, with paper mills supplying more and more journal articles and an increasing number of young scientists seeking boost their careers by claiming false research experience. In some cases, journal editors have been bribed to accept articles, and paper mills have managed to set up their own agents as guest editors who then allow the publication of volumes of falsified work.
“Editors are not fulfilling their roles properly, and peer reviewers are not doing their jobs. And some of them are paying huge sums of money,” said Professor Alison Avenell from the University of Aberdeen. “It’s a big concern.”
Paper mill products often look like regular articles but are based on templates where the names of genes or diseases are randomly slotted in among dummy tables and figures. Worryingly, these articles can then be incorporated into large databases used by those working on drug discovery.
Others are more idiosyncratic and include research unrelated to the journal’s field, making it clear that no peer review has been done for that article. An example is a paper on Marxist ideology that appeared in the magazine Computational and Mathematical Methods in Medicine. Others are notable for the strange language they use, including references to “bosom risk” rather than breast cancer and “Parkinson’s disease” rather than Parkinson’s disease.
Watchdog groups – such as Retraction Watch – have tracked the problem and noted that there have been retractions from magazines that have been forced to act on occasions when fabrications have been discovered. One study, with naturerevealed that there were just over 1,000 withdrawals in 2013. In 2022, the figure was over 4,000 before jumping to over 10,000 last year.
Of this latter total, more than 8,000 retracted papers were published in journals owned by Hindawi, a subsidiary of publisher Wiley, figures that have now forced the company to act. “The Hindawi brand will be sunsetting and we have begun to fully integrate the 200 plus Hindawi journals into the Wiley portfolio,” a Wiley spokesperson told the Observer.
The spokesman added that Wiley had now identified hundreds of fraudsters in its journal portfolio, as well as those with guest editorial roles. “We have removed them from our systems and will continue to take a proactive approach … in our efforts to clean up the academic record, strengthen our integrity processes and contribute to cross-industry solutions.”
But Wiley insisted he could not tackle the crisis alone, a message echoed by other publishers, who say they are under pressure from paper mills. Academics remain cautious, however. The problem is that academics in many countries are paid according to the number of papers they have published.
“If you have an increasing number of researchers who are strongly encouraged to publish just for the sake of publishing, even though there are a growing number of journals that make money from publishing the resulting articles , you have an amazing storm,” said Professor Marcus Munafo from the University of Bristol. “That’s exactly what we have now.”
The harm caused by the publication of weak or fabricated research is illustrated by the anti-parasitic drug ivermectin. Early laboratory studies showed that it could be used to treat Covid-19 and it was indicated to be a miracle drug. However, it was later discovered that these studies showed clear evidence of fraud, and medical authorities refused to support it as a treatment for Covid.
“The trouble was, anti-vaxxers used ivermectin to say: ‘We don’t need vaccination because we have this wonder drug,'” said Jack Wilkinson at the University of Manchester. “But many of the tests that led to those claims were not authentic.”
Wilkinson added that he and his colleagues wanted to develop protocols that researchers could implement to reveal the authenticity of studies they could include in their own work. “Great science came out during the pandemic, but there was also an ocean of rubbish research. We need ways to find weak data early on.”
Professor Malcolm MacLeod from the University of Edinburgh also highlighted the danger of the rise of the paper mill and fraudulent research papers. “If I, as a scientist, want to check all the papers about a particular drug that might target cancer or stroke cases, it’s very difficult for me to avoid the ones that have been done. Scientific knowledge is being polluted by made-up material. We are facing a crisis.”
The Bishop supported this point: “People are building careers because of this tidal wave of fraudulent science and could end up running scientific institutions and eventually being employed by mainstream journals as reviewers and editors. Corruption is entering the system.”
