Analysis of citations to biomedical articles affected by scientific misconduct

Science and Engineering Ethics 16 (2):251-261 (2010)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

We describe the ongoing citations to biomedical articles affected by scientific misconduct, and characterize the papers that cite these affected articles. The citations to 102 articles named in official findings of scientific misconduct during the period of 1993 and 2001 were identified through the Institute for Scientific Information Web of Science database. Using a stratified random sampling strategy, we performed a content analysis of 603 of the 5,393 citing papers to identify indications of awareness that the cited articles affected by scientific misconduct had validity issues, and to examine how the citing papers referred to the affected articles. Fewer than 5% of citing papers indicated any awareness that the cited article was retracted or named in a finding of misconduct. We also tested the hypothesis that affected articles would have fewer citations than a comparison sample; this was not supported. Most articles affected by misconduct were published in basic science journals, and we found little cause for concern that such articles may have affected clinical equipoise or clinical care.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 97,244

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Responsible conduct in research.P. J. D. Drenth - 2006 - Science and Engineering Ethics 12 (1):13-21.

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-07-18

Downloads
122 (#154,840)

6 months
24 (#155,235)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?