Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by the College Fix on February 14, 2025. With edits to match MTC’s style guidelines, it is cross-posted here with permission.
More than 500 studies on COVID-19 have been withdrawn due to “bias,” “unreliable” information, or unspecified reasons, a blog that tracks retracted documents, found.
Retraction Watch co-founder Ivan Oransky told the College Fix via phone interview one reason for the high number of retractions is the academic system’s incentive structure which pressures researchers to rapidly produce studies and get them peer reviewed as quickly as possible.
“Why do they feel the need to rush papers through? Well, it’s because that’s how they get or keep their jobs, that’s how they get grants, everything is based on that,” he said.
“When you know that your whole career depends on publishing papers in particular journals, you’re going to do what you have to do to publish those papers. Most of the time that means you work hard, you hire the smart grad students and postdocs,” he said.
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Oransky also said researchers may feel “too desperate” or that “incentives are so stark” that there’s no “humanly possible way” to do it. “So you start engaging in misconduct,” he said.
The articles in the list pertain to risk factors related to COVID-19 vaccines and various alternative treatments for the disease.
“It’s really a range of everything from essays to big clinical trials,” he said.
Oransky pointed the Fix to one of his research letters examining the differences between retractions of COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 related research papers.
The results showed that papers on COVID-19 had a higher likelihood of being retracted or withdrawn within the first six months of publication and that they were more likely removed “without detailed explanation or for non-misconduct-related concerns.”
He said retracting papers is not necessarily a bad thing, as it can correct information that was potentially wrong or misleading. Ensuring clear and concise reasoning for retractions is crucial, he told the Fix.
“The problem is when papers aren’t retracted. The problem is when papers sit in the literature, people know there’s a problem, but everybody refuses to do anything about them,” Oransky said.
Further, many people use retractions to argue the government, drug companies, and others are untrustworthy. Generally, those people either “have an axe to grind” or are “just trying to sell the public something,” he said.
A retraction simply says the information “is unreliable.” “It doesn’t remove it from the world,” he said.
However, the transparency of the process varies. Some retraction notices provide no explanation, while others include detailed reasons for the retraction.
One of the retracted papers in the list, which question why children are being vaccinated against COVID-19, was withdrawn due to “unreliable” findings stemming from “inappropriate bias,” according to the retraction notice.
Another paper on COVID-19 vaccination risks was completely withdrawn without any explanation. Oransky told the Fix that full withdrawals are not considered best practice.
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In other instances, retractions occurred because the author or editor sought further information they wanted to include or because of a technical error that occurred during the study that affected the results.
The College Fix reached out to the publisher of the COVID-19 vaccination risk study, Elsevier, seeking an answer as to why the paper was removed without an explanation. The publisher said because the article was published in 2020, it wouldn’t be able to determine why it was withdrawn within a reasonable amount of time.
“Our goal is to prevent any cases that could potentially compromise the integrity of the scientific record and trust in research,” an Elsevier spokesperson told the Fix.
“The paper in question was retracted some years back and since then the journal has undergone editorial and review changes,” the spokesperson said.
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This article was originally published at www.mindingthecampus.org
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