The fate of retracted articles (October 14, 2005)

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A member of the Evidence Based Health email discussion group noted an interesting discussion about a recently retracted Cochrane review:

• "Is CybermedicineKilling You?"--The story of a Cochrane disaster. Eysenbach G, Kummervold PE. J Med Internet Res 2005: 7(2); e21. [Medline] [Full text]

It turns out that most journals do not have a clear written policy on publishing retractions.

• Retraction policies of high-impact biomedical journals. Atlas MC. J Med Libr Assoc 2004: 92(2); 242-50. [Medline] [Abstract] [Full text] [PDF]

This article also cited research done in 1990 that showed that 82 fully retracted articles were nevertheless cited a total of 733 additional times after the article was retracted. The number of invalid citations of retracted research was not concentrated in the lower quality journals either. A control group of research papers indicated retracted articles were indeed cited less often than unretracted articles, but only by 35%.

• The continued use of retracted, invalid scientific literature. Pfeifer MP, Snodgrass GL. Jama 1990: 263(10); 1420-3. [Medline]

I will add some more details about this when I get the chance.