TY - JOUR
T1 - Continued post-retraction citation of a fraudulent clinical trial report, 11 years after it was retracted for falsifying data
AU - Schneider, Jodi
AU - Ye, Di
AU - Hill, Alison M.
AU - Whitehorn, Ashley S.
N1 - Funding Information:
Conceptualization: Jodi Schneider; Data curation?Network Analysis: Di Ye (lead), Jodi Schneider (supporting); Data curation?First Generation Citation Context Analysis: Jodi Schneider (lead) and Di Ye (supporting); Data curation?Second Generation Citation Context Analysis: Jodi Schneider (lead) and Di Ye (supporting) and Alison Hill (supporting?confirmation of some annotation); Formal analysis: Di Ye (lead) and Jodi Schneider (supporting); Methodology: Jodi Schneider (lead), Di Ye (supporting), Alison Hill (supporting) and Ashley Whitehorn (supporting); Investigation: Di Ye (co-lead) and Jodi Schneider (co-lead) and Alison Hill (supporting?confirmation of annotation) and Ashley Whitehorn (supporting?confirmation of annotation); Project administration?Jodi Schneider; Resources?Jodi Schneider; Software?Di Ye; Visualization?Di Ye (lead) and Jodi Schneider (supporting); Supervision: Jodi Schneider; Writing?original draft preparation: Jodi Schneider (lead) and Di Ye (supporting); Writing?review and editing: Jodi Schneider, Alison Hill and Ashley Whitehorn. https://www.casrai.org/credit.html. Thanks to the anonymous reviewers and to?Halle Burns, Kiel Gilleade, Hoa Luong at the Illinois DataBank, Ly Dinh, Nur Aini Rakhmawati, Yohta Shimizu, and Linda Smith. This study could not have been completed without the assistance of the Interlibrary Loan Office at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; thanks also to the library?s Sharon Han for Web of Science assistance. JS also gratefully acknowledges the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Pittsburgh for facilitating access to their library holdings, and the assistance of Danny Miller and Helena VonVille at the Health Sciences Library System at the University of Pittsburgh. Alfred P. Sloan Foundation G-2020-12623.?NIH R01LM010817.
PY - 2020/12
Y1 - 2020/12
N2 - This paper presents a case study of long-term post-retraction citation to falsified clinical trial data (Matsuyama et al. in Chest 128(6):3817–3827, 2005. https://doi.org/10.1378/chest.128.6.3817), demonstrating problems with how the current digital library environment communicates retraction status. Eleven years after its retraction, the paper continues to be cited positively and uncritically to support a medical nutrition intervention, without mention of its 2008 retraction for falsifying data. To date no high quality clinical trials reporting on the efficacy of omega-3 fatty acids on reducing inflammatory markers have been published. Our paper uses network analysis, citation context analysis, and retraction status visibility analysis to illustrate the potential for extended propagation of misinformation over a citation network, updating and extending a case study of the first 6 years of post-retraction citation (Fulton et al. in Publications 3(1):7–26, 2015. https://doi.org/10.3390/publications3010017). The current study covers 148 direct citations from 2006 through 2019 and their 2542 second-generation citations and assesses retraction status visibility of the case study paper and its retraction notice on 12 digital platforms as of 2020. The retraction is not mentioned in 96% (107/112) of direct post-retraction citations for which we were able to conduct citation context analysis. Over 41% (44/107) of direct post-retraction citations that do not mention the retraction describe the case study paper in detail, giving a risk of diffusing misinformation from the case paper. We analyze 152 second-generation citations to the most recent 35 direct citations (2010–2019) that do not mention the retraction but do mention methods or results of the case paper, finding 23 possible diffusions of misinformation from these non-direct citations to the case paper. Link resolving errors from databases show a significant challenge in a reader reaching the retraction notice via a database search. Only 1/8 databases (and 1/9 database records) consistently resolved the retraction notice to its full-text correctly in our tests. Although limited to evaluation of a single case (N = 1), this work demonstrates how retracted research can continue to spread and how the current information environment contributes to this problem.
AB - This paper presents a case study of long-term post-retraction citation to falsified clinical trial data (Matsuyama et al. in Chest 128(6):3817–3827, 2005. https://doi.org/10.1378/chest.128.6.3817), demonstrating problems with how the current digital library environment communicates retraction status. Eleven years after its retraction, the paper continues to be cited positively and uncritically to support a medical nutrition intervention, without mention of its 2008 retraction for falsifying data. To date no high quality clinical trials reporting on the efficacy of omega-3 fatty acids on reducing inflammatory markers have been published. Our paper uses network analysis, citation context analysis, and retraction status visibility analysis to illustrate the potential for extended propagation of misinformation over a citation network, updating and extending a case study of the first 6 years of post-retraction citation (Fulton et al. in Publications 3(1):7–26, 2015. https://doi.org/10.3390/publications3010017). The current study covers 148 direct citations from 2006 through 2019 and their 2542 second-generation citations and assesses retraction status visibility of the case study paper and its retraction notice on 12 digital platforms as of 2020. The retraction is not mentioned in 96% (107/112) of direct post-retraction citations for which we were able to conduct citation context analysis. Over 41% (44/107) of direct post-retraction citations that do not mention the retraction describe the case study paper in detail, giving a risk of diffusing misinformation from the case paper. We analyze 152 second-generation citations to the most recent 35 direct citations (2010–2019) that do not mention the retraction but do mention methods or results of the case paper, finding 23 possible diffusions of misinformation from these non-direct citations to the case paper. Link resolving errors from databases show a significant challenge in a reader reaching the retraction notice via a database search. Only 1/8 databases (and 1/9 database records) consistently resolved the retraction notice to its full-text correctly in our tests. Although limited to evaluation of a single case (N = 1), this work demonstrates how retracted research can continue to spread and how the current information environment contributes to this problem.
KW - Case study
KW - Citation context analysis
KW - Diffusion studies
KW - Link resolver errors
KW - Misinformation
KW - Post-retraction citation
KW - Problematic citation
KW - Problems with bibliographic libraries
KW - Retraction
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U2 - 10.1007/s11192-020-03631-1
DO - 10.1007/s11192-020-03631-1
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85092601632
SN - 0138-9130
VL - 125
SP - 2877
EP - 2913
JO - Scientometrics
JF - Scientometrics
IS - 3
ER -