I found an article in the Wall Street Journal that shows that the rate of retractions of scientific studies in scientific journals has proliferated over the last decade. Data compiled for the WSJ by Thompson-Reuters shows that the number of research articles published since 2001 increased by 44%, while during the same period the number of articles retracted increased 15 times.
This has an effect on all scientific research, even cancer research and treatment. In one instance, research at the Mayo Clinic was set back about a decade. They found that some experiments that were related to the use of the body’s own immune system to fight cancer had been fabricated. This incidence of fraud ended up leading to the retraction of 17 research papers that were published in nine scientific journals. continue reading…