UR and IMR supports its decision on treatment guidelines derived from peer reviewed published medical journal articles. This sounds like a straight forward process. But, now there is a marked increase in the number of scientific and medical articles being retracted because of fraud, or suspected fraud. According to Retraction Watch, “[t]he number of papers retracted by all publishers for fake peer reviews since 2012 is now approximately 250, with another 32 flagged for peer review fraud . . . but not yet retracted.” Retraction Watch estimates that approximately 1,500 papers have been retracted overall since 2012.
This week a major publisher of scientific and medical articles has confirmed that it is retracting 64 articles from 10 of its subscription journals based on concerns that the peer review process was “compromised.” The publisher, Springer, issued this statement:
“Springer confirms that 64 articles are being retracted from 10 Springer subscription journals, after editorial checks spotted fake email addresses, and subsequent internal investigations uncovered fabricated peer review reports. After a thorough investigation we have strong reason to believe that the peer review process on these 64 articles was compromised. We reported this to the Committee on Publishing Ethics (COPE) immediately. Attempts to manipulate peer review have affected journals across a number of publishers as detailed by COPE in their December 2014 statement. Springer has made COPE aware of the findings of its own internal investigations and has followed COPE’s recommendations, as outlined in their statement, for dealing with this issue. Springer will continue to participate and do whatever we can to support COPE’s efforts in this matter.”
The Springer journal collection includes more than 2.500 English-language and close to 200 German-language journals. Springer is also home to the largest portfolio of open access journals, including the journals from BioMed Central and the SpringerOpen portfolio. The announcement from Springer about the 64 retracted articles is brief – it does not say which papers were withdrawn or where they were published. Nor does it identify the source of the fake reviews The announcement comes nine months after 43 studies were retracted by BioMed Central (one of Springer’s imprints) for the same reason.