Retract Now: Negating Flawed Research Must Be Quicker

It’s take back time.

A landmark paper concerning stem cell research and transplantation that misled researchers and the general public for 15 years is among the more than 10,000 research papers retracted in 2023. These papers covered topics ranging from dementia to spiders to anesthesia.

The request to retract the 2008 article came long after many medical experts knew it was wrong. Many knew for years that the treatment it proposed — transplanting airways using a patient’s own stem cells — was not a “breakthrough” but “bogus.” The first patient “struggled with her transplant for 8 years,” and “Virtually all subsequent patients who received tissue engineered trachea transplants died.”

The paper’s author, former surgeon Paolo Macchiarini, is now serving 30 months in prison for unethical surgeries that harmed patients. This case inspired a docuseries and a season of “Dr. Death.” Other recent cases of false research leading to retraction include room-temperature superconductors and a study accompanied by artificial intelligence (AI)-generated anatomically incorrect rat testicles.

The rise in fraudulent or inaccurate research papers is an increasing problem. It’s costing publishers millions in lost revenue with more losses expected. Advances in AI have created an arms race between fake paper generation and tools to detect it. As an academic or medical healthcare provider, it is vital to know when it is possible to rely on research, and to what extent. Cleaning up the literature should not require a court case — as it did in the Macchiarini case — or extend over decades.

Another problem is that policymakers globally may already have made funding decisions or influenced medical practices (as recommended by the research) by the time a paper is retracted, even when the timeframe is modest, such as 18 months. Policymakers in elected positions and at academic institutions, as well as funders, research publishers, and developers of healthcare guidelines need alerts when articles are retracted and research is debunked. This is to ensure that when it does take over a decade to retract, it is possible to quickly update knowledge in the field and shift guidelines and policy in tandem.

The scientific record is a record of the paths taken over time. And the mistakes and falsification along the way are a valid part of the version of record. That includes flaws in predicting suicide risk from brain scans, and fraud such as an antidepressant trial with fake data. Mistakes are understandable and research is continually updating itself, yet the scientific record is not always updated.

It is urgent to be faster and more responsive in retracting publications. To do this, it is worthwhile to streamline the processes for retracting research as necessary. Publishers of journals must include the right to retract in publication agreements. National funding agencies must set aside a fraction of a percent of their budget to fund national centers for investigation. Institutions need to tweak the incentive structures of career scientists. This is because researchers secure and advance their careers by writing and publishing papers; so retraction (which results in “losing” a paper) can impact the people (authors) and their career prospects.

Additionally, open science, data sharing, and preprints are becoming more important, while funders increasingly welcome diverse research products as part of establishing career progression or documenting the output of science funding. There is incentive on all sides to publish and publish quickly. There is little incentive to retract.

No one entity can do the work to retract. While authors may request retraction, often institutional or publisher investigations are needed. It is important to keep retraction out of courts of law. The world can’t wait 15 years to pull dangerous science from the literature.

Jodi Schneider, PhD, is associate professor of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, and a Public Voices fellow of The OpEd Project. She leads the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation project, “Reducing the Inadvertent Spread of Retracted Science.”