The scientific community corrects flawed articles by publishing corrections of the erroneous data or by retracting the whole article. Our research has shown that 1582 genetics articles were retracted between 1970 and 2018, with an estimated retraction rate of 0.15% −which is rather high with respect to the all−disciplines estimated retraction rate of 0.04%.

The most serious cases are those articles that were retracted because the investigators committed fabrication (invention), falsification (manipulation) or plagiarism. These three misbehaviours are named ‘research misconduct’ and were the reason behind 33% of all retractions. Other common reasons for retraction were duplication, authorship issues, and unreliable information. The USA and China were the countries with the largest number of retracted articles. (By Drs. Rafael Dal−Ré and Carmen Ayuso, https://jmg.bmj.com/content/early/2019/07/12/jmedgenet-2019-106137 )

Drs Carmen Ayuso & Rafael Dal-Ré