In the past ten years, stealthy business institutions around the globe have industrialized production, sale and spread false scientific research. These paper factories profit by undermining the literature to which all rely from doctors to engineers to make decisions about human life.
It is extremely difficult To get a grip on how big the issue is. About 55,000 scientific papers were receded to this pointFor various reasons, but scientists and firms that Screening the scientific literature for treacherous signs of fraud Estimate that there are rather more fake papers in circulation – possibly as many as several hundred thousand. This fake research can confuse legitimate researchers who must wade through dense equations, evidence, images and methods just to find out that they were invented.
Even if false papers are discovered – normally by amateur sheles in their very own time – academic magazines are sometimes often Slowly to retreat The papers that enable the articles for example what many consider to be sacrosunched: the massive global library of scientific work, which introduces latest ideas, reviews and other research results and discusses the outcomes.
These fake papers decelerate research that has helped hundreds of thousands of individuals with life-saving medicine and therapies, from cancer to covid-19. The analysts' data show that areas in reference to cancer and medicine are particularly hard, while areas resembling philosophy and art are less affected.
To higher understand the scope, the consequences and the potential solutions of this metastatic attack on science RetreatAn internet site that reports on provisions of scientific work and related topics, in addition to about two computer scientists at France University of Toulouse III – Paul Sabatier And Grenoble Alpes University Anyone who focuses on the detection of false publications – have examined paper factories for six months.
Mit creator Guillaume Cabanac also developed the Problematic paper screenerwhich Filter 130 million latest and old scientific papers Every week after nine forms of indications that a paper is fake or contained errors.
An obscure molecule
Frank Cackowski At Wayne State University of Detroit was confused.
The oncologist examined a sequence of chemical reactions in cells to find out whether or not they could possibly be a destination for drugs for prostate cancer. A Paper from 2018 In the American Journal of Cancer Research, his interest aroused when he read that slightly -known molecule called SNHG1 could interact with the chemical reactions that he examined. He and colleagues Wayne State researcher Steven Zielske began experiments, but found no connection.
In the meantime, Zielske had grow to be suspicious of the paper. Two diagrams that showed results for various cell lines were equivalent to how it could “like watering water in two glasses with closed eyes and the exact same. Another diagram and a table within the article also inexplicably contained equivalent data.
Target described his concerns In an anonymous contribution in 2020 PubberAn online forum wherein many scientists report potential research deficiency and in addition turned to the publisher of the journal. The journal Pulled the paper, Citing “fake materials and/or data”.
“Science is hard enough because they are actually real and try to do real work,” said Cackowski, who also works in Michigan on the Karmanos Cancer Institute.
Amy SackaPresent CC BY-ND
Legitimate academic magazines evaluate papers before publication by fastidiously reading other researchers on site. However, this peer review is anything but perfect. Reviewers are currently reporting
Some publishers may try Select reviewers that you just accept for more as papers,Because the rejection of a manuscript can mean losing hundreds of dollars of publication fees.
Worse, some corrupt scientists form Peer Review rings. Paper factories can create Failed peer reviewers. Others can bribe the editors or Plant agents in Journal Editorial authorities.
An “absolutely big” problem
It is unclear to begin operating as paper factories on the size. The earliest suspected paper factory article was published in 2004. After the database for the retreat clockdescribed within the retractions and operated by the Center for Scientific Integrity, the non -profit organization of the retreat.
An evaluation of 53,000 works that were presented with six publishers – but not necessarily published – were found 2% to 46% Suspicious submissions across magazines. The American publisher Wiley who has withdrawn More than 11,300 articles and closed 19 magazines seriously affected in his former Hindawi Up to 1 to 7 entries.
Up to 2% Of the several million scientific works published in 2022, based on Adam Day, the Clear Skies, an organization in London, developed the tools to acknowledge fake papers. Some areas are worse than others: biology and medicine are closer to three%, and a few subfields resembling cancer could be much larger, said Day.
The problem of the paper mill is “absolutely huge,” said, said Sabina AlamDirector of publication ethics and integrity at Taylor & Francis, a big academic publisher. In 2019, it was not in any of the 175 cases of their team for paper factories, said Alam. Ethics cases include submissions and already published papers. “We had almost 4,000 cases” in 2023, she said. “And half of them were paper factories.”
Jennifer Byrne, an Australian scientist who’s now heading A research group to enhance the reliability of medical researchPresent say In a representative house of the US representative house in July 2022, almost 6% of 12,000 researched research work that would signal the participation of paper feelings. Byrne switched her Cancer Research Lab in 2017 Because genes that she had researched and wrote about it for twenty years became the goal of pretend papers.
In 2022, Byrne and colleagues, including two of us, found that the suspects of genetics research, even though it didn’t immediately affect, had patient care. informs the work of the scientistsincluding clinical studies. But publishers are sometimes Slowly to withdraw spoiled papersEven whether it is alerted on obvious fraud. We found that 97% of the 712 problematic genetics research articles We identified, didn’t remain corrected.
Potential solutions
The Cochrane cooperation has a policy Without suspicious studies from the analyzes of medical evidence and develops a tool Recognize problematic medical studies. And publishers have began Share data and technologies amongst themselves to combat fraud, including Image fraud.
Technology startups also offer help. The website Argoslaunched in September 2024 by SkitabilityAn alarm service based in Sparks, Nevada, allowed To check authors Collaborators for tractions or misconduct. Morressier, a scientific conference and communication company in Berlin, offers Research integrity tools. The tools for checking the paper include SignalsFrom research signals and clear sky based in London ' Paper alarm.
However, Alam admits that the fight against paper factories won’t be won so long as the booming demand for papers stays.
Today's business publication is a component of the issue, said Byrne. Tidying up the literature is a big and expensive undertaking. “Either we have to monetize corrections so that publishers paid for their work or forget the publishers and do it themselves,” she said.
There is a fundamental prejudices on the Pro Profit publication: “We pay them to accept newspapers”, Maryland. With More than 50,000 magazines There are bad papers in the marketplace that bought a house long enough, Stern said.
To prevent this, we could stop paying magazines to simply accept papers and consider them to be seen as a public supply company that serve a bigger good. “We should pay for transparent and strict quality control mechanisms,” he said.
Peer Review should now be recognized as the unique article as an actual scientific product, “said Stern. And magazines should make all peer review reports available publicly, even for manuscripts that they reject.
image credit : theconversation.com