ArticleFASEB journal : official publication of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology2014
Sources of error in the retracted scientific literature.
Article in FASEB journal : official publication of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 33 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
33 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Prevalence and Prevention of Reproducibility Deficiencies in Life Sciences Research: Large-Scale Meta-Analyses.Medical science monitor : international medical journal of experimental and clinical research · 2020Pooled it
- Scientific retractions: causes, processes, and implications for research integrity.Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's archives of pharmacology · 2026Review
- mspms: an R package and GUI for multiplex substrate profiling by mass spectrometry.BMC bioinformatics · 2026Article
- Genetic Insights into the Economic Toll of Cell Line Misidentification: A Comprehensive Review.Medical sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Analysis of Retracted Publications in the Diabetes Literature.Medical journal of the Islamic Republic of Iran · 2026Article
- From policy to practice: progress towards data- and code-sharing in ecology and evolution.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- ISSCR standards for the use of human stem cells in basic research.Stem cell reports · 2023Review
- Teaching students to R3eason, not merely to solve problem sets: The role of philosophy and visual data communication in accessible data science education.PLoS computational biology · 2023Article
- Prediction and Construction of Energetic Materials Based on Machine Learning Methods.Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Review
- Article
- Best practices in statistical computing.Statistics in medicine · 2021Article
- Assessing and Raising Concerns About Duplicate Publication, Authorship Transgressions and Data Errors in a Body of Preclinical Research.Science and engineering ethics · 2020Article
- Seven quick tips for analysis scripts in neuroimaging.PLoS computational biology · 2020Article
- Correctable Myths About Research Misconduct in the Biomedical Sciences.Science and engineering ethics · 2019Article
- Article
- The visibility of scientific misconduct: A review of the literature on retracted journal articles.Current sociology. La Sociologie contemporaine · 2017Review
- Article
- The ghosts of HeLa: How cell line misidentification contaminates the scientific literature.PloS one · 2017Article
- Reproducibility and Research Integrity.Accountability in research · 2017Article
- Retractions in cancer research: a systematic survey.Research integrity and peer review · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Retraction of flawed articles is an important mechanism for correction of the scientific literature. We recently reported that the majority of retractions are associated with scientific misconduct. In the current study, we focused on the subset of retractions for which no misconduct was identified, in order to identify the major causes of error. Analysis of the retraction notices for 423 articles indexed in PubMed revealed that the most common causes of error-related retraction are laboratory errors, analytical errors, and irreproducible results. The most common laboratory errors are contamination and problems relating to molecular biology procedures (e.g., sequencing, cloning). Retractions due to contamination were more common in the past, whereas analytical errors are now increasing in frequency. A number of publications that have not been retracted despite being shown to contain significant errors suggest that barriers to retraction may impede correction of the literature. In particular, few cases of retraction due to cell line contamination were found despite recognition that this problem has affected numerous publications. An understanding of the errors leading to retraction can guide practices to improve laboratory research and the integrity of the scientific literature. Perhaps most important, our analysis has identified major problems in the mechanisms used to rectify the scientific literature and suggests a need for action by the scientific community to adopt protocols that ensure the integrity of the publication process.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.