Retractions up 15-fold over past decade in 11,600 scientific publications
(NEWSER) - The number of retractions in scientific journals has surged 15-fold over the past decade, rising to 339 last year from 22 in 2001—far faster than the 44% increase in the number of articles published over the same period, reports the Wall Street Journal in an investigation of 11,600 peer-reviewed scientific journals. And with most science built upon the science of others, one paper's retraction can have a snowball effect, taking out dozens of subsequent papers. The Mayo Clinic alone lost a decade of research after data about using the immune system to fight cancer was discovered to have been faked. More»
