Analysis: Fraud Usually Involved in Scientific Retractions

Not simple human error

There's been a ten-fold increase in the number of fraud-related retractions of biomedical papers since 1975, putting paid to the idea that it's usually just a case of owning up to an inadvertent error.

In a new analysis claimed to be the most comprehensive of its kind, a US team has concluded that misconduct—such as fraud or suspected fraud, duplicate publication and plagiarism—is responsible for two-thirds of all retractions.