Retracted medical genetics and non-medical genetics articles from 1970 to 2018 and in five time periods. (A) Time (years) to retraction when scientific misconduct (ie, fabrication/falsification, plagiarism) was involved. (B) Country of origin of authors of retracted articles. Information pertaining to the seven top countries with the highest number of biomedical retracted articles1
| Reason for retraction | 1970–2018 | 1970–2000 | 2001–2005 | 2006–2010 | 2011–2015 | 2016–2018 | ||||||
| Medical genetics N/mean time (95% CI) – median (Q1, Q3) | Non-medical genetics N/mean time (95% CI) – median (Q1, Q3) | Medical genetics N/mean time (95% CI) – median (Q1, Q3) | Non-medical genetics N/mean time (95% CI) – median (Q1, Q3) | Medical genetics N/mean time (95% CI) – median (Q1, Q3) | Non-medical genetics N/mean time (95% CI) – median (Q1, Q3) | Medical genetics N/mean time (95% CI) – median (Q1, Q3) | Non-medical genetics N/mean time (95% CI) – median (Q1, Q3) | Medical genetics N/mean time (95% CI) – median (Q1, Q3) | Non-medical genetics N/mean time (95% CI) – median (Q1, Q3) | Medical genetics N/mean time (95% CI) – median (Q1, Q3) | Non-medical genetics N/mean time (95% CI) – median (Q1, Q3) | |
| A. Time to retraction due to scientific misconduct reasons | ||||||||||||
| Fabrication or falsification* | 128/4.7 (4.0 to 5.3) – 4.0 (1.8, 6.5) | 248/6.4 (5.8 to 7.0) – 5.4 (2.3, 9.0) | 17†/ 7.3 (6.6 to 8.0) – 6.6 (2.7, 10.3) | 28‡/10.5 (9.8 to 11.1) – 8.6 (4.4, 15.3) | 19/5.9 (5.4 to 6.4) – 5.9 (1.3, 9.9) | 47§/9.5 (9.3 to 9.7) – 10.3 (6.0, 13.5) | 55¶**/4.8 (4.7 to 4.8) – 5.0 (2.7, 6.8) | 86††‡‡/6.9 (6.8 to 6.9) – 6.7 (5.0, 9.1) | 33/2.9 (2.8 to 3.0) – 2.9 (1.6, 3.9) | 82§§¶¶/3.1 (3.0 to 3.1) –2.9 (1.4, 4.7) | 4/0.8 (0.3 to 1.2) – 0.7 (0.4, 1.1) | 5/1.1 (0.7 to 1.6) – 1.0 (0.5, 1.5) |
| P value | 0.001 | NS | 0.005 | <0.001 | NS | NS | ||||||
| Plagiarism*** | 71/2.3 (1.7 to 3.0) – 1.3 (0.5, 3.0) | 76/2.3 (1.7 to 3.0) – 1.3 (0.5, 3.1) | 2/7.0 (0.0 to 15.6) – 7.0 (6.6, 7.5) | 2/14.6 (0.0 to 38.1) – 14.6 (13.3, 15.9) | 8/5.5 (4.2 to 6.8) – 4.3 (3.2, 7.1) | 4/3.5 (0.1 to 6.9) – 2.2 (0.4, 5.3) | 12/2.8 (2.2 to 3.4) – 0.9 (0.5, 5.3) | 23/2.4 (2.2 to 2.7) – 1.5 (0.6, 4.0) | 36/1.9 (1.8 to 2.0) – 1.6 (0.9, 2.4) | 33/1.8 (1.7 to 1.9) – 1.3 (0.5, 3.0) | 13/0.5 (0.5 to 0.6) – 0.4 (0.3, 0.5) | 14/1.2 (1.1 to 1.2) – 1.0 (0.8, 1.5) |
| P value | NS | NS | NS | NS | NS | 0.001 | ||||||
| Medical genetics nff/np | Non-medical genetics nff/np | Medical genetics nff/np | Non-medical genetics nff/np | Medical genetics nff/np | Non-medical genetics nff/np | Medical genetics nff/np | Non-medical genetics nff/np | Medical genetics nff/np | Non-medical genetics nff/np | Medical genetics nff/np | Non-medical genetics nff/np | |
| B. Country of authors of retracted articles | ||||||||||||
| China | 25/36 | 14/34 | 0/0 | 1/0 | 0/2 | 0/0 | 10/6 | 5/2 | 13/23 | 8/18 | 0/7 | 1/12 |
| Germany | 14/1 | 3/0 | 3/0 | 3/0 | 1/0 | 5/0 | 5/1 | 2/0 | 1/0 | 0/0 | 0/0 | 0/0 |
| India | 15/9 | 3/4 | 0/0 | 0/0 | 0/1 | 0/1 | 2/4 | 3/2 | 11/2 | 0/1 | 1/2 | 0/0 |
| Japan | 33/2 | 19/0 | 1/0 | 5/0 | 5/0 | 11/1 | 11¶/0 | 13/0 | 5/0 | 1/0 | 1/0 | 0/0 |
| South Korea | 12/6 | 4/3 | 0/0 | 0/0 | 2/1 | 4/0 | 1/2 | 1/1 | 1/1 | 7/4§§ | 0/0 | 0/0 |
| UK | 16/1 | 3/2 | 0/0 | 2/0 | 1/1 | 1/0 | 5/1 | 2/0 | 5/0 | 1/1 | 0/0 | 0/0 |
| US | 133/8 | 59/8 | 12† / 0 | 13/0 | 9/1 | 9§ / 1 | 51**/4 | 28††‡‡/3 | 21/3 | 38¶¶/3 | 1/0 | 1/1 |
One article could have authors from more than one country; authors with at least four retractions in a specific time period are mentioned as footnotes.
The reasons for retraction as per the Retraction Watch database’s nomenclature:
*Falsification/fabrication of data, images and results, and manipulation of results and images.
†Four retracted articles by Mohan K Raizada (USA).
‡Four retracted articles by Alfredo Fusco (Italy).
§Eight retracted articles by Jin Q Cheng (USA).
¶Eight retracted articles by Naoki Mori (Japan).
**Four retracted articles by Savio LC Woo (USA).
††Eleven retracted articles by Fazlul H Sarkar (USA).
‡‡Eight retracted articles by Jin Q Cheng (USA).
§§Four retracted articles by Soo Kyung Kang (South Korea).
¶¶Five retracted articles by Fazlul H Sarkar (USA).
***Euphemism for plagiarism and plagiarism of article, data, images or text.
N, number of retracted articles; NS, not significant; 1Q, 3Q, first and third quartiles; nff, number of retracted articles for fabrication/falsification in the specified country; np, number of retracted articles for plagiarism in the specified country.