ArticleJournal of medical genetics2019
Reasons for and time to retraction of genetics articles published between 1970 and 2018.
Article in Journal of medical genetics, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 8 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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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
8 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Causes for Retraction in the Biomedical Literature: A Systematic Review of Studies of Retraction Notices.Journal of Korean medical science · 2023Pooled it
- Analysis of Retractions in Nursing from Publications Between 2000 and 2024: A Bibliometric Analysis Using Retraction Watch.Nursing reports (Pavia, Italy) · 2025Article
- The Profile of Articles onJournal of empirical research on human research ethics : JERHRE · 2022Article
- An analysis of retractions in neurosurgery and allied clinical and basic science specialties.Acta neurochirurgica · 2021Article
- [The COVID-19 Pandemic Changes the Scientific Publication System].Archivos de bronconeumologia · 2021Article
- Retracted articles in the biomedical literature from Indian authors.Scientometrics · 2021Article
- Research ethics: a profile of retractions from world class universities.Scientometrics · 2021Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issuedCorrection:2020
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionBetween 0.02% and 0.04% of articles are retracted. We aim to: (a) describe the reasons for retraction of genetics articles and the time elapsed between the publication of an article and that of the retraction notice because of research misconduct (ie, fabrication, falsification, plagiarism); and (b) compare all these variables between retracted medical genetics (MG) and non-medical genetics (NMG) articles.
methodsAll retracted genetics articles published between 1970 and 2018 were retrieved from the Retraction Watch database. The reasons for retraction were fabrication/falsification, plagiarism, duplication, unreliability, and authorship issues. Articles subject to investigation by company/institution, journal, US Office for Research Integrity or third party were also retrieved.
results1582 retracted genetics articles (MG, n=690; NMG, n=892) were identified . Research misconduct and duplication were involved in 33% and 24% of retracted papers, respectively; 37% were subject to investigation. Only 0.8% of articles involved both fabrication/falsification and plagiarism. In this century the incidence of both plagiarism and duplication increased statistically significantly in genetics retracted articles; conversely, fabrication/falsification was significantly reduced. Time to retraction due to scientific misconduct was statistically significantly shorter in the period 2006-2018 compared with 1970-2000. Fabrication/falsification was statistically significantly more common in NMG (28%) than in MG (19%) articles. MG articles were significantly more frequently investigated (45%) than NMG articles (31%). Time to retraction of articles due to fabrication/falsification was significantly shorter for MG (mean 4.7 years) than for NMG (mean 6.4 years) articles; no differences for plagiarism (mean 2.3 years) were found. The USA (mainly NMG articles) and China (mainly MG articles) accounted for the largest number of retracted articles.
conclusionGenetics is a discipline with a high article retraction rate (estimated retraction rate 0.15%). Fabrication/falsification and plagiarism were almost mutually exclusive reasons for article retraction. Retracted MG articles were more frequently subject to investigation than NMG articles. Retracted articles due to fabrication/falsification required 2.0-2.8 times longer to retract than when plagiarism was involved.
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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.