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Ética en la publicación científica biomédica. Revisión de las publicaciones retractadas en España
Abstract
Se identifican las principales causas de retractación de artículos de temas biomédicos de autores afiliados en España, así
como los factores que ayudan a interpretar este fenómeno. Se han analizado 132 retractaciones, siendo la primera causa
de retractación la fabricación o falsificación de datos. También destacan las causas asociadas a imágenes duplicadas o
reutilizadas, los errores en los datos o procedimientos admitidos y no malintencionados, los artículos duplicados o fragmentados y el plagio. Las retractaciones no son frecuentes y suponen solamente el 0,11% de la producción de autores
con afiliación en España. Pero mucho más allá, las retractaciones son un importante mecanismo de corrección y alerta
para las publicaciones científicas que asegura la fiabilidad de la bibliografía médica, su calidad y progreso.
... 3 In a review of 132 retractions in scientific publications, the main causes were found to be data falsification and fabrication (23%), unauthorized reproduction of graphic materials (22%), errors in data or procedures (20%) and plagiarism (11%). 4 Accepting that research results dissemination has scientific progress, development of knowledge and techniques, and the search for better practices as its purposes, the search for recognition and academic promotion becomes a stimulus for the establishment of improper practices that deteriorate academic-scientific production. 4 In a letter to the editor, Silva sets forth that there are practices that tend towards the production of multiple academic articles from the same work, dividing the information into different products to have access to academic stimuli, which can threaten information quality and support of the presented conclusions. ...
... 4 Accepting that research results dissemination has scientific progress, development of knowledge and techniques, and the search for better practices as its purposes, the search for recognition and academic promotion becomes a stimulus for the establishment of improper practices that deteriorate academic-scientific production. 4 In a letter to the editor, Silva sets forth that there are practices that tend towards the production of multiple academic articles from the same work, dividing the information into different products to have access to academic stimuli, which can threaten information quality and support of the presented conclusions. 5 In 2010, it was found out that publications related to the drug roziglitasone, used for diabetes control, had concealed data associated with complications such as an increase in the incidence of myocardial infarction in patients who received it. ...
... 3 En una revisión de 132 retractaciones en publicaciones científicas se encontró que las principales causas fueron la falsificación y la fabricación de datos (23 %), la copia de gráficos (22 %), el error en los datos o procedimientos (20 %) y el plagio (11 %). 4 Aceptando que la divulgación de los resultados de la investigación tiene como objetivo el avance científico, el desarrollo de conocimientos y técnicas y la búsqueda de mejores prácticas, la búsqueda de reconocimiento y las promociones académicas se convierten en estímulo para el establecimiento de malas prácticas que deterioran la producción académico-científica. 4 En una carta al editor, Silva plantea la existencia de prácticas que propenden por la obtención de múltiples artículos académicos a partir de un mismo trabajo, fraccionando la información en diferentes productos para acceder a estímulos académicos, lo cual puede atentar contra la calidad de la información y del sustento de las conclusiones presentadas. 5 En 2010, se conoció que publicaciones relacionadas con el fármaco roziglitasone, usado para el control de la diabetes, habían ocultado datos asociados a complicaciones como el aumento de la incidencia de infarto de miocardio en los pacientes que lo recibieron. ...
... A causa de la identificación de malas prácticas en la producción científica, los comités de ética surgen como una estrategia protectora y necesaria que vela por el cumplimiento de los principios básicos de justicia, autonomía, beneficencia y no maleficencia. 3 En una revisión de 132 retractaciones en publicaciones científicas se encontró que las principales causas fueron la falsificación y la fabricación de datos (23 %), la copia de gráficos (22 %), el error en los datos o procedimientos (20 %) y el plagio (11 %). 4 Aceptando que la divulgación de los resultados de la investigación tiene como objetivo el avance científico, el desarrollo de conocimientos y técnicas y la búsqueda de mejores prácticas, la búsqueda de reconocimiento y las promociones académicas se convierten en estímulo para el establecimiento de malas prácticas que deterioran la producción académico-científica. 4 En una carta al editor, Silva plantea la existencia de prácticas que propenden por la obtención de múltiples artículos académicos a partir de un mismo trabajo, fraccionando la información en diferentes productos para acceder a estímulos académicos, lo cual puede atentar contra la calidad de la información y del sustento de las conclusiones presentadas. 5 En 2010, se conoció que publicaciones relacionadas con el fármaco roziglitasone, usado para el control de la diabetes, habían ocultado datos asociados a complicaciones como el aumento de la incidencia de infarto de miocardio en los pacientes que lo recibieron. ...
... Numerous studies have been published in recent years examining the extent, scope, frequency and typology of research misconduct (Martinson et al. 2005;De Vries et al. 2006;Fanelli 2009;Pupovac and Fanelli 2015;Gross 2016;Pupovac et al. 2017;Haven et al. 2019a). This research has mainly focused on biomedical and health sciences, and other experimental sciences (Jefferson 1998;Gilbert and Denison 2003;De Vries et al. 2006, Anderson et al. 2007Stretton et al. 2012;Okonta and Rossouw 2013;DuBois et al. 2013;Dhingra and Mishra 2014;Tijdink et al. 2014;Rohwer et al. 2017;Buljan et al. 2018;Godecharle et al. 2018;Liao et al. 2018;Grey et al. 2019;Marco-Cuenca et al. 2019;Dal-Ré 2020;Kokiwar et al. 2020). By contrast, fewer studies have specifically examined the prevalence of research misconduct in the social sciences (Bedeian et al. 2010;John et al. 2012;Fonseca-Mora et al. 2014;Moctezuma 2016;Hopp and Hoover 2017;Bailey 2019), and even less so in the humanities, although some authors have included some humanistic fields in multidisciplinary analyses (Bretag and Carapiet 2007;Krstić 2015;Pupovac et al. 2017;Horbach and Halffman 2019;Haven et al. 2019a, b, c). ...
... Only one study specifically analyses research misconduct in the social sciences, focusing on editors' perceptions of its extent in the fields of communication, education and psychology (Fonseca-Mora et al. 2014). Other more recent papers analyse the number of retracted papers in the field of biomedicine (Dal-Ré 2020;Marco-Cuenca et al. 2019). ...
A correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-021-00309-6
... Numerous studies have been published in recent years examining the extent, scope, frequency and typology of research misconduct (Martinson et al. 2005;De Vries et al. 2006;Fanelli 2009;Pupovac and Fanelli 2015;Gross 2016;Pupovac et al. 2017;Haven et al. 2019a). This research has mainly focused on biomedical and health sciences, and other experimental sciences (Jefferson 1998;Gilbert and Denison 2003;De Vries et al. 2006, Anderson et al. 2007Stretton et al. 2012;Okonta and Rossouw 2013;DuBois et al. 2013;Dhingra and Mishra 2014;Tijdink et al. 2014;Rohwer et al. 2017;Buljan et al. 2018;Godecharle et al. 2018;Liao et al. 2018;Grey et al. 2019;Marco-Cuenca et al. 2019;Dal-Ré 2020;Kokiwar et al. 2020). By contrast, fewer studies have specifically examined the prevalence of research misconduct in the social sciences (Bedeian et al. 2010;John et al. 2012;Fonseca-Mora et al. 2014;Moctezuma 2016;Hopp and Hoover 2017;Bailey 2019), and even less so in the humanities, although some authors have included some humanistic fields in multidisciplinary analyses (Bretag and Carapiet 2007;Krstić 2015;Pupovac et al. 2017;Horbach and Halffman 2019;Haven et al. 2019a, b, c). ...
... Only one study specifically analyses research misconduct in the social sciences, focusing on editors' perceptions of its extent in the fields of communication, education and psychology (Fonseca-Mora et al. 2014). Other more recent papers analyse the number of retracted papers in the field of biomedicine (Dal-Ré 2020;Marco-Cuenca et al. 2019). ...
Empirical studies have revealed a disturbing prevalence of research misconduct in a wide variety of disciplines, although not, to date, in the areas of ethics and philosophy. This study aims to provide empirical evidence on perceptions of how serious a problem research misconduct is in these two disciplines in Spain, particularly regarding the effects that the model used to evaluate academics’ research performance may have on their ethical behaviour. The methodological triangulation applied in the study combines a questionnaire, a debate at the annual meeting of scientific association, and in-depth interviews. Of the 541 questionnaires sent out, 201 responses were obtained (37.1% of the total sample), with a significant difference in the participation of researchers in philosophy (30.5%) and in ethics (52.8%); 26 researchers took part in the debate and 14 interviews were conducted. The questionnaire results reveal that 91.5% of the respondents considered research misconduct to be on the rise; 63.2% considered at least three of the fraudulent practices referred to in the study to be commonplace, and 84.1% identified two or more such practices. The researchers perceived a high prevalence of duplicate publication (66.5%) and self-plagiarism (59.0%), use of personal influence (57.5%) and citation manipulation (44.0%), in contrast to a low perceived incidence of data falsification or fabrication (10.0%). The debate and the interviews corroborated these data. Researchers associated the spread of these misconducts with the research evaluation model applied in Spain.
Several studies on research misconduct have already explored and discussed its potential occurrence in universities across different countries. However, little is known about this issue in Spain, a paradigmatic context due to its consolidated scientific evaluation system, which relies heavily on metrics. The present article attempts to fill this gap in the literature through an empirical study undertaken in a specific university: Universitat Jaume I (Castelló). The study was based on a survey with closed and open questions; almost half the total population of the university’s researchers participated (505 out of 1030, i.e. 49.03%), yielding a representative sample of different academic career stages and areas of knowledge. Results show that 71.68% (n = 362) of the respondents consider at least one form of misconduct to be proliferating in their area of knowledge at the national level. This figure falls to 48.95% (n = 247) in reference to misconduct in their own institution. The most frequently reported types of misconduct linked to life with colleagues are especially the use of personal influence (in evaluation or review processes); lax supervision of doctoral theses; and the abuse of power over people in lower positions. Personal ambitions and pressure from the evaluation system are regarded as the most influential causes of misconduct proliferation, according to academics at this Spanish university.
El fenómeno de la desinformación constituye uno de los grandes desafíos que la investigación en comunicación ha abordado en el último lustro, por lo que resulta necesario establecer un primer estado de la cuestión sobre la respuesta de la academia española hacia esta problemática. A tal fin responde este trabajo, que analiza la investigación sobre desinformación publicada en las revistas científicas españolas desde 2016. El objetivo es descubrir las tendencias en cuanto a los temas abordados y construir una cartografía general de estos objetos de estudio. Se llevó a cabo una revisión sistematizada de la literatura bajo un enfoque mixto que integra un análisis cualitativo-interpretativo y un estudio estadístico descriptivo e inferencial. Aunque la dispersión temática es la nota dominante, se observa una clara tendencia hacia la búsqueda de soluciones para afrontar esta problemática, especialmente desde el campo periodístico, con el análisis del fact-checking como actor principal. Asimismo, existe un elevado interés hacia la dimensión discursiva del fenómeno y el estudio de sus posibles causas; frente a otras temáticas centrales para comprender el problema, como los patrones de propagación del contenido falso y los sesgos que operan en su recepción, que cuentan con escasa presencia en el contexto español.
The purpose of this study is to review the publications retracted due to fraud written by authors with affiliation in Italy in the period 2000-2020. For the identification of retracted publications, Retraction Watch Database has been used and Web of Science and Pubmed databases have been used for their verification and review. A total of 112 retractions were obtained due to fraud related the criteria defined in the methodology. The results obtained establish that the main cause of retraction due to scientific misconduct has been plagiarism, which represents 77.68% of the retractions reviewed. 20.54% of retractions are associated with data falsification/fabrication and 1.79% with both causes. There is an average of 5.6 articles retracted per year in the period analyzed. The most frequent type of retracted works are research articles in the area of Life Sciences and Biomedicine. It is noteworthy that 37% of the articles continue to be cited after their retraction.
This paper discusses the criminalization of scientific misconduct, as discussed and defended in the bioethics literature. In doing so it argues against the claim that fabrication, falsification and plagiarism (FFP) together identify the most serious forms of misconduct, which hence ought to be criminalized, whereas other forms of misconduct should not. Drawing the line strictly at FFP is problematic both in terms of what is included and what is excluded. It is also argued that the criminalization of scientific misconduct, despite its anticipated benefits, is at risk of giving the false impression that dubious practices falling outside the legal regulation “do not count”. Some doubts are also raised concerning whether criminalization of the most serious forms of misconduct will lower the burdens for universities or successfully increase research integrity. Rather, with or without criminalization, other measures must be taken and are probably more important in order to foster a more healthy research environment.
Objective:
To analyse retraction notices from 2016 and compare their quality to the 2008 notices.
Results:
From 146 retractions retrieved, only 123 were included, of which, a clear reason for retraction was available for 122 (99.2%) and no reason was given for one (0.8%). The main reasons for retraction were mistakes 26.0% (n = 32), fraud 26.0% (n = 32), plagiarism 20.3% (n = 25), and overlap 8.1% (n = 10). In 100 (81.3%) cases, a mention of retraction was available on the original paper, in 15 (12.2%) there was no mention of retraction, and 8 (6.5%) papers were deleted. Compared to the previous cohorts, management of retraction has improved because 99.2% provided a clear reason, and 81.3% of original articles were available with a mention of the retraction.
The number of retracted scientific articles has been increasing. Most retractions are associated with research misconduct, entailing financial costs to funding sources and damage to the careers of those committing misconduct. We sought to calculate the magnitude of these effects. Data relating to retracted manuscripts and authors found by the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) to have committed misconduct were reviewed from public databases. Attributable costs of retracted manuscripts, and publication output and funding of researchers found to have committed misconduct were determined. We found that papers retracted due to misconduct accounted for approximately 392,582 in direct costs (SD $423,256). Researchers experienced a median 91.8% decrease in publication output and large declines in funding after censure by the ORI.
Objectives
To document low/middle-income country (LMIC) health researchers’ views about authorship, redundant publication, plagiarism and conflicts of interest and how common poor practice was in their institutions.
Design
We developed a questionnaire based on scenarios about authorship, redundant publication, plagiarism and conflicts of interest. We asked participants whether the described practices were acceptable and whether these behaviours were common at their institutions. We conducted in-depth interviews with respondents who agreed to be interviewed.
Participants
We invited 607 corresponding authors of Cochrane reviews working in LMICs. From the 583 emails delivered, we obtained 199 responses (34%). We carried out in-depth interviews with 15 respondents.
Results
Seventy-seven per cent reported that guest authorship occurred at their institution, 60% reported text recycling. For plagiarism, 12% of respondents reported that this occurred ‘occasionally’, and 24% ‘rarely’. Forty per cent indicated that their colleagues had not declared conflicts of interest in the past. Respondents generally recognised poor practice in scenarios but reported that they occurred at their institutions. Themes identified from in-depth interviews were (1) authorship rules are simple in theory, but not consistently applied; (2) academic status and power underpin behaviours; (3) institutions and culture fuel bad practices and (4) researchers are uncertain about what conflict of interests means and how this may influence research.
Conclusions
LMIC researchers report that guest authorship is widely accepted and common. While respondents report that plagiarism and undeclared conflicts of interest are unacceptable in practice, they appear common. Determinants of poor practice relate to academic status and power, fuelled by institutional norms and culture.
Data fraud and selective reporting both present serious threats to the credibility of science. However, there remains considerable disagreement among scientists about how best to sanction data fraud, and about the ethicality of selective reporting. The public is arguably the largest stakeholder in the reproducibility of science; research is primarily paid for with public funds, and flawed science threatens the public’s welfare. Members of the public are able to make meaningful judgments about the morality of different behaviors using moral intuitions. Legal scholars emphasize that to maintain legitimacy, social control policies must be developed with some consideration given to the public’s moral intuitions. Although there is a large literature on popular attitudes toward science, there is no existing evidence about public opinion on data fraud or selective reporting. We conducted two studies—a survey experiment with a nationwide convenience sample (N = 821), and a follow-up survey with a representative sample of U.S. adults (N = 964)—to explore community members’ judgments about the morality of data fraud and selective reporting in science. The findings show that community members make a moral distinction between data fraud and selective reporting, but overwhelming judge both behaviors to be morally wrong. Community members believe that scientists who commit data fraud or selective reporting should be fired and banned from receiving funding. For data fraud, most Americans support criminal penalties. Results from an ordered logistic regression analysis reveal few demographic and no significant partisan differences in punitiveness toward data fraud.
Las herramientas informáticas han permitido la detección de diversas manifestaciones de mala conducta en investigación en la literatura científica. Organismos como The Office for Research Integrity (ORI), el Comité de Ética de la Publicación (COPE), el Retraction Watch y las academias de ciencias de los países, organizan cursos, seminarios e investigaciones para promover valores como la honestidad, la imparcialidad, la objetividad, la fiabilidad, la responsabilidad y el escepticismo en la comunicación científica. En este trabajo se analizaron 1.373 artículos registrados en PubMed entre 1959 y 2015, cuyo texto y nota de retractación eran de libre acceso. Se observó que los artículos retractados entre 2010 y 2015 casi duplicaron el acumulado de los 44 años anteriores. El error admitido, el plagio o autoplagio y la falsificación o fabricación de datos, se presentaron en 32,8 %, 23,7 % y 19,7 % de las ocasiones, respectivamente. En los primeros cuatro meses del 2015, se retractaron 37 artículos por revisoría falsa o influencia de los autores sobre los revisores, una modalidad de mala conducta en la investigación no detectada en estudios anteriores. Los porcentajes de artículos retractados de libre acceso en relación con los artículos de libre acceso publicados por año variaron de 0,0072 % (1/13.861) en 1966 a 0,0472 % (213/45.1021) en el 2013. El porcentaje de artículos retractados en relación con los artículos publicados provenientes de 54 países en el mismo periodo (1959 a 2015), varió entre 0,0042 % (1/23.761) y 0,2732 % (1/366). El número de artículos retractados con más de 10 autores fue menor que aquellos con 6 a10 o 1 a 5 autores. La retractación de 794 (57,8 %) artículos se presentó antes de los dos primeros años y 579 (42.2 %) después de dos años de su publicación. La retractación de 714 (52 %) artículos fue solicitada por los autores, de 485 (35,3 %) por los editores y de 70 (5,1 %) de común acuerdo por ambas partes. El 80,8% (1.110/1.373) de los artículos retractados habían sido citados. En el artículo se discute la importancia de promover la educación sobre la retractación y la corrección de la literatura científica para contribuir a la integridad de la ciencia y a la confianza de la sociedad en la comunidad científica. © 2016. Acad. Colomb. Cienc. Ex. Fis. Nat.
Objective:
To analyze the causes of retracted publications and the main characteristics of their authors.
Method:
A descriptive cross-sectional study was designed including all retracted publications from January 1st, 2013-December 31st, 2016 indexed in PubMed. The causes of retraction were classified as: data management, authorship issues, plagiarism, unethical research, journal issues, review process, conflict of interest, other causes, and unknown reasons. Then, misbehaviour was classified as misconduct, suspicion of misconduct or no misconduct suspicion.
Results:
1,082 retracted publications were identified. The retraction rate for the period was 2.5 per 10,000 publications. The main cause of retraction was misconduct (65.3%), and the leading reasons were plagiarism, data management and compromise of the review process. The highest proportion of retracted publications corresponded to Iran (15.52 per 10,000), followed by Egypt and China (11.75 and 8.26 per 10,000).
Conclusions:
Currently, misconduct is the main cause of retraction. Specific strategies to limit this phenomenon must be implemented. It would be useful to standardize reasons and procedures for retraction. The development of a standard retraction form to be permanently indexed in a database might be relevant.
Policies and practices to correct and retract scientific articles suffer from numerous limitations that are increasingly discussed in the literature. We briefly summarize these issues and propose a new and unified taxonomy of amendment types. The proposed 13-category system both simplifies and expands existing classifications and may be used as a heuristic tool to retrospectively classify literature amendments, as a taxonomy for electronic tagging, and as a blueprint for new amendment formats that journal editors could experiment with. We argue that an implicit or explicit diversification of amendment types would make correction and retraction practices more efficient, transparent, informative and supportive of scientific self-correction.