Retracted publications in the biomedical literature with authors from mainland China

The number of retracted articles with Chinese authors has raised much attention, but no systematic study has specifically explored the retraction of academic publications by researchers from mainland China. Here, we determined the characteristics of retracted publications from mainland China in the biomedical literature. We searched the Medline database through PubMed and Web of Science to identify retracted publications with first authors from mainland China. Data for 825 retracted studies were included in the analysis. The number and rate of retractions have increased since 1999. We found that 651 retractions were for articles published in journals with relatively low impact factors (< 5). Commonest reasons for retraction were plagiarism (192), errors (159), duplicate publication (143), and invalid peer review (137). Authors of retracted articles were from 28 of the 31 provinces in mainland China. The number of retracted articles from mainland China has shown an increasing trend. Misconduct was the primary reason for retraction. Retracted articles originated from most provinces in China and were published in numerous journals. These findings indicate that misconduct issues are widespread in China. Results of this study highlight the need to take measures to prevent misconduct among Chinese researchers.