Published studies in genetics are significantly more likely to be flawed than other scientific publications, according to an analysis published today.
Researchers found that studies in genetics are eight times as likely to be retracted as those in other disciplines.
Since the turn of the century the main cause has been plagiarism and duplication, according to the analysis in the Journal of Medical Genetics.
Researchers investigated some 1,582 retracted articles, collected by a specialist database. The bulk of these came from seven countries, China, Germany, India, Japan, South Korea, the UK and the USA – with the USA and China accounting for more than 500 articles each.
Just 69 retracted articles came from the UK.
They found that 44% of the studies were medical and about a third involved misconduct such as false data or plagiarism.
The overall retraction rate in genetics is about 0.15% as some 975,000 genetics articles were published between 1996 and 2017, the researchers say.
The researchers, led by Dr Rafael Dal-Ré, of the Universidad Autónoma of Madrid, Madrid, Spain, write: “Therefore we should assume that genetics is a discipline with a high retraction rate.”
Journal of Medical Genetics 26 July 2019
Leave a Reply