Is scientific fraud getting worse in chemistry papers?
A new study shows an increase in chemistry papers retracted for fraud and experts say scientific publishing is compounding the problem
A study of more than 1200 chemistry retractions over 20 years shows an increase in research fraud.
But independent experts say the number of retractions doesn’t reflect the scale of the problem: many cases of scientific fraud go unnoticed amid the vast ‘firehose’ of papers published in scientific journals, and some journal publishers simply ignore complaints.
The lead author of the new study notes the number of retracted chemistry papers increased over 20 years from about 10 to about 100 a year. But ‘retraction growth is not uniform and varies, as massive frauds are only detected incidentally’, says chemistry librarian Yulia Sevryugina of the University of Michigan.