Retraction Rates of Research Articles Addressing COVID-19 Pandemic: Is it the Evolving COVID Epidemiology or Scientific Misconduct?

Sir,

With global pandemic underway, there has been a pandemic of research/academic publications as well. As on August 15, 2020, around 100,000 articles have been published globally and around 76% of these are focused on medical, public health, and health services.[1] There have been growing concerns from the academia on this mad rush to publish, especially when the epidemiology of COVID-19 is still evolving.

With this letter, we aim to provide findings from a systematic study evaluating the retraction rate (RR) of scientific publication addressing COVID-19 research and reasons for retraction. For this, the Retraction Watch Database (http://retractiondatabase. org/RetractionSearch.aspx) was systematically screened for retraction records associated with COVID-19 publications along with PubMed as on August 15, 2020.

The search yielded 30 retracted/withdrawn articles studying various scientific aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic [Table 1]. A spectrum of journals retracting the articles was relatively heterogeneous with high impact factor and reputed journals to preprint health science servers. Majority of the articles retracted were due to postpublication criticism, inability to produce/support study conclusion or claim through data, and nonadherence to research ethics. Maximum, i.e., one-third of the retracted articles, were authored from China (33.3%). The fastest retraction was 48 h, and overall, it ranged from 2 to 57 days, however, in seven articles, the duration was not specified.

Table 1

Characteristic findings of the retracted articles

Studies	Authors	Reasons	Publication date	Retraction date	Country
From SARS-CoV to Wuhan 2019-nCoV Outbreak: Similarity of Early Epidemic and Prediction of Future Trends	Chen et al.	Issues with authors’ consent	January 25, 2020	January 28, 2020	China
Uncanny similarity of unique inserts in the 2019-nCoV spike protein to HIV-1 gp120 and Gag	Pradhan et al.	To upgrade the findings	January 31, 2020	February 3, 2020	India
Epidemiological and clinical features of the 2019 novel coronavirus outbreak in China	Yang et al.	To upgrade the findings	February 11, 2020	February 21, 2020	China
Clinical and Epidemiological Characteristics of 34 Children With 2019 Novel Coronavirus Infection in Shenzhen	Wang et al.	Unknown	February 17, 2020	Unknown	China
Chinese medical staff request international medical assistance in fighting against COVID-19	Zeng and Zhen	Retracted by publisher as authors stated that it was not a first-hand account	February 24, 2020	February 26, 2020	China
Mental health status and coping strategy of medical workers in China during the COVID-19 outbreak	Siyu et al.	To upgrade the findings	February 25, 2020	March 7, 2020	China
Potential False-Positive Rate among the “Asymptomatic Infected Individuals” in Close Contacts of COVID-19 Patients	Zhuang et al.	Editorial board decided to withdraw the article based on concerns raised on methodology and results	March 5, 2020	March 27, 2020	China
An epidemiological investigation of 2019 novel coronavirus diseases through aerosol-borne transmission by public transport		Unknown	Early March	Mid-April	China
Experimental Treatment with Favipiravir for COVID-19: An Open-Label Control Study	Cai et al.	Temporarily retracted, now back online, without any explanation	March 18, 2020	Unknown	China
Computational analysis suggests putative intermediate animal hosts of the SARS-CoV-2	Chu et al.	To upgrade the findings	April 5, 2020	April 20, 2020	China
Effectiveness of Surgical and Cotton Masks in Blocking SARS–CoV-2: A Controlled Comparison in four Patients	Bae et al.	The author’s interpretation of their results was misleading - Concept of limit of detection was questioned	April 6, 2020	June 1, 2020	South Korea
COVID-19 Emergency Responders in FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research	Gormley and Nagan	The publisher regretted that this article is an accidental duplication of an article already published	April 6, 2020	Unknown	USA
Managing college operations during the coronavirus outbreak	To fade and Daftary	The publisher regrets that this article is an accidental duplication of an article already published	April 10, 2020	Unknown	USA
SARS-CoV-2 infects T-lymphocytes through its spike protein-mediated membrane fusion	Wang et al.	To upgrade the findings	April 7, 2020	June 10, 2020	China
Mortality of a pregnant patient diagnosed with COVID-19: A case report with clinical, radiological, and histopathological findings	Karami et al.	Conflict of interest among authors and principal clinicians involved in the study	April 11, 2020	May 2, 2020	Iran
Analysis of Ten Microsecond simulation data of SARS-CoV-2 dimeric main protease	Parves et al.	The authors have withdrawn this manuscript because of a violation of research ethics	April 12, 2020	April 16, 2020	Bangladesh
Should sexual practices be discouraged during the pandemic?	Yin Z	Replaced on unknown date. No explanation	April 16, 2020	May 11, 2020	China
Usefulness of Ivermectin in COVID-19 Illness	Patel et al.	Unknown	April 19, 2020	Unknown	USA
Patterns of COVID-19 Mortality and Vitamin D: An Indonesian Study	Raharusun et al.	No ethical approval, mischaracterized research, odd statistics, unlikely result, and very weird authorship	April 30, 2020	Unknown	Indonesia
Ivermectin in COVID-19-Related Critical Illness	Patel and Desai	Further analysis was needed to consider additional confounding factors	April, 2020	May, 2020	USA
Cardiovascular Disease, Drug Therapy, and Mortality in Covid-19	Mehra et al.	Access to data was not granted. Criticism regarding data reliability	May 1, 2020	June 2, 2020	USA
Lung Disease Severity, Coronary Artery Calcium, Coronary inflammation and Mortality in Coronavirus Disease 2019	Gaibazzi et al.	Editorial board withdrew the article based on concerns raised by scientific community on methodology and results	May 6, 2020	June 20, 2020	USA
Smoking Prevalence is Low in Symptomatic Patients Admitted for COVID-19	Gaibazzi et al.	Authors withdraw the manuscript due to ethical issues	May 10, 2020	June 13, 2020	USA
Hydroxychloroquine plus azithromycin: A potential interest in reducing in-hospital morbidity due to COVID-19 pneumonia (HI-ZY-COVID)?	Davido et al.	The authors have withdrawn this manuscript because of controversy about hydroxychloroquine and the retrospective nature of their study	May 11, 2020	May 20, 2020	France
Treatment Response to Hydroxychloroquine, Lopinavir/Ritonavir, and Antibiotics for Moderate COVID 19: A First Report on the Pharmacological Outcomes from South Korea	Kim et al.	The authors have withdrawn this manuscript because of the controversy about hydroxychloroquine and potential changes in results after peer review; the authors intend to share their results in formal publication	May 18, 2020	June 14, 2020	South Korea
Chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19: Why might they be hazardous?	Funck-Brentano and Salem	Access to data was not granted. Criticism regarding data reliability	May 22, 2020	July 9, 2020	France
Hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine with or without a macrolide for treatment of COVID-19: A multinational registry analysis	Mehra et al.	Access to data was not granted. Criticism regarding data reliability	May 22, 2020	June 2, 2020	USA
Psychiatric Predictors of COVID-19 Outcomes in a Skilled Nursing Facility Cohort	Cercy S	The author has voluntarily withdrawn this manuscript because of questions raised about privacy issues in the conduct of this study	May 26, 2020	June 21, 2020	USA
5G Technology and induction of coronavirus in skin cells	Fioranelli et al.	Failure to support its research findings	July 16, 2020	July 24, 2020	Italy
Can Your AI Differentiate Cats from COVID-19? Sample Efficient Uncertainty Estimation for Deep Learning Safety	Mallick et al.	Reliability of the findings and claims regarding study findings was questioned	July 2020	June 17, 2020	USA
An effective protective equipment to use in the vaginal delivery of the pregnant women with suspected/diagnosed COVID-19	Sahin D	Publisher says the word “effective” was included in the title by accident	June 15, 2020	June 25, 2020	Turkey

Retraction is a mechanism for correcting the literature and alerting readers to the articles that contain such seriously flawed or erroneous content or data because of which their findings and conclusions cannot be relied upon. The main purpose of retraction is to correct the literature and ensure its integrity rather than to punish the authors.[234] With PubMed reporting publication of 37,970 articles (using COVID-19 as a search term in PubMed on August 15) in the year 2020 related to COVID-19, the RR for scientific publication related to COVID-19 comes to 8.67/10,000 articles published, which is relatively higher than RR with reference RR of articles reporting other diseases (2.3–3.9/10000 articles).[3] Although retraction of articles publishing research on COVID-19 started in January 2020 itself, it started receiving major attention after retraction of a huge study published by lancet showing higher mortality and ventricle tachycardia in COVID patients treated with hydroxychloroquine. While this pandemic requires quick dissemination of information, sharing of preprint articles on media and other platforms without journal-mediated peer-review needs to be considered rationally. It becomes a collective responsibility of researchers, publishers, and media. Hence, overall a possible solution can be either adherence to prescribed guidelines, such as the Committee on Publication Ethics, or has a check on preprints and speedy peer-review process. A critical balance can ensure faith in academic publications.

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Conflicts of interest

There are no conflicts of interest.