Up to 3% of medical research papers are fake

Simon Collins, HIV i-Base

The seasonal bonus article, as we finish the issue this year, and highlighted in Nature – provides a caution going into the New Year.

A review of papers published over the last two decades concluded that 400,000 show strong similarities to previously published work or that were clearly produced by research paper mills.

Of these, approximately 70,000 were published during the last year, with a rate of 3% among biology and medicine papers.

The analysis itself though is not yet published, and the report in Nature is behind a paywall, so the anarcho-skepticist editors at HTB proudly bow out, leaving you with highly unsatisfactory click-bait.

Reference

How big is science’s fake-paper problem? Nature. (6 November 2023)
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03464-x