Fraudulent scientific research is on the rise and is jeopardizing medical research, experts have warned.<\/p>\n
A new study has found that networks of bad actors\u00a0work together to publish bogus research. The findings, published in the journal PNAS this week<\/a>, came from analyzing more than 5 million scientific articles published across 70,000 journals.<\/p>\n “There are groups of editors conspiring to publish low-quality articles, at scale, escaping traditional peer review processes,” said the study’s lead author Reese Richardson, a social scientist at Northwestern University in the\u00a0US<\/a>.<\/p>\n The research uncovered evidence of networks of scientific journal editors who frequently publish research that is flagged for integrity issues, and “brokers” who connect fraudulent authors to these editor networks.<\/p>\n “This kind of fraud destroys trust in science. It biases systematic and meta-analysis, it delays treatment and delays new research,” said Anna Abalkina, a social scientist at the Free University of Berlin, who was not involved in the study.<\/p>\n Scientific fraud is a growing issue<\/p>\n New scientific research is published as research papers in research journals. There are tens of thousands of different research journals, each publishing different themes of research, and with different levels of scientific impact.<\/p>\n These journals are platforms for researchers to share their findings, theories\u00a0and ideas with peers and the broader public.\u00a0<\/p>\n “Historically, the scientific [publication] enterprise has been an engine for progress. It’s given us vaccines, antibiotics<\/a>, the internet<\/a>, sterile surgery \u2026 everything that makes life comfortable for us now,” said Richardson.\u00a0<\/p>\n But sham research is on the rise \u2014 as many as one\u00a0in seven research publications contain fake data, by some estimates. Artificial intelligence is also fueling this<\/a> research misconduct.<\/p>\n Fraudulent studies contain fabricated data, unverified results, plagiarized research<\/a> or manipulated images.<\/p>\n “You can map out networks of image duplication that are thousands of articles wide,” Richardson said.<\/p>\n Bogus research damages scientific integrity<\/p>\n Fake or poor-quality research is typically caught by journal editors or peer reviewers, but experts warn it is increasingly making its way to publication by groups of bad actors working together.<\/p>\n Several\u00a0high-profile instances of scientific fraud have been uncovered.\u00a0During the COVID-19 pandemic, fraudulent research was used to make scientific and political judgments on the merits of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID<\/a> infection. Experts linked the issue with “self-promotion journals”\u00a0\u2014 where publication authors are often the editors of the very same journals in which\u00a0they publish their studies.<\/p>\n Even single fraudulent studies\u00a0can cause lasting problems. For example, researchers found evidence of image manipulation in a landmark study about Alzheimer’s\u00a0disease<\/a>. The paper was eventually retracted and the lead scientist resigned, but Abalkina said billions of dollars in research funding and years of research had already been invested from one bad study.<\/p>\n “[It’s] incredible what just one paper can do,” Abalkina told DW.<\/p>\n Studying genes to build a career in science