Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Citing documents of Wakefield’s retracted article: the domino effect of authors and journals

  • Published:
Scientometrics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The present study aims to find out the origin of authors and the main sources in which citing documents of Wakefield’s 1998 retracted article are published in order to understand whether they act as promoters of a negative domino effect, there is, keeping alive a retracted article due to fraudulent data and analysis on the relationship between MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine and autism. The metadata of the 1577 citing documents of Wakefield’s article were downloaded from Scopus in three files according to the year of publication: 1998–2004 (partial retraction), 2005–2010 (in between partial and full retraction) and 2011–2020 (post full retraction). The number of citing documents in each period is 329, 411 and 837, respectively. A comparison between first and last periods indicates an impressive growth of language, authors, countries as well as journals from broader field coverage. Also, recent citing articles are highly cited and, even in a negative context, they contribute to the diffusion of a fraudulent article in the science context. The findings reinforce the urgency to create internal strategies in the scientific communication process, mainly inside the editorial flow, in order to reduce the dissemination of a retracted article that, in this case, is still harmful to society. At the end, the creation of an automatic mechanism to detect retracted articles included in the reference list of accepted articles is suggested.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Source: Scopus

Fig. 3

Source: Scopus

Fig. 4

Source: Scopus

Fig. 5

Source: Scopus

Fig. 6

Source: Scopus

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Wakefield, A.J. et al. Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children. Lancet. 1998 Feb 28;351(9103):637–41. The retracted paper is not included in the reference list as a strategy for not giving it more impact and visibility. A more detailed explanation is presented in the section Conclusion and some remarks.

References

  • Bar-Ilan, J., & Halevi, G. (2017). Post retraction citations in context: A case study. Scientometrics, 113(1), 547–565.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bornmann, L. (2011). Scientific peer review. Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, 45(1), 197–245.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bornemann-Cimenti, H., Szilagyi, I. S., & Sandner-Kiesling, A. (2016). Perpetuation of retracted publications using the example of the Scott S. Reuben case: Incidences, reasons and possible improvements. Science and Engineering Ethics, 22(4), 1063–1072.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brasil. MEC – Portal Periódicos. (2021). Retrieved from http://www-periodicos-capes-gov-br.ezl.periodicos.capes.gov.br/index.php?

  • Burnham, J. (1990). The evolution of peer review. Journal of American Medical Association, 263, 1323–1329.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Candal-Pedreira, C., et al. (2020). Does retraction after misconduct have an impact on citations? A pre–post study. BMJ Global Health, 5(11), e003719.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Collins, H., & Pinch, T. (2008). Dr. Golem: How to think about medicine. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • da Silva, J. A. T., & Bornemann-Cimenti, H. (2017). Why do some retracted papers continue to be cited? Scientometrics, 110(1), 365–370.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dales, L., Hammer, S. J., & Smith, N. J. (2001). Time trends in autism and in MMR immunization coverage in California. Journal of the American Medical Association, 285(9), 1183–1185.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Derrick, G. E., et al. (2018). Towards characterising negative impact: Introducing Grimpact. In 23rd International Conference on Science and Technology Indicators. Leiden University, CWTS.

  • Fang, F. C., Grant Steen, R. G., & Casadevall, A. (2012). Misconduct accounts for the majority of retracted scientific publications. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(42), 17028–17033.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fox, M. F. (1994). Scientific misconduct and editorial and peer review processes. The Journal of Higher Education, 65(3), 298–309.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Garfield, E. (1996). What is the primordial reference for the phrase ‘publish or perish.’ The Scientist, 10(12), 11.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gu, X., & Blackmore, K. L. (2016). Recent trends in academic journal growth. Scientometrics, 108(2), 693–716.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Horton, R. (2004). A statement by the editors of The Lancet. The Lancet, 363(9411), 820–821.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hussain, A., et al. (2018). The anti-vaccination movement: a regression in modern medicine. Cureus, 10(7), e2919.

    Google Scholar 

  • Latour, B., & Woolgar, S. (2013). Cycles of credit. In: Laboratory life. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

  • Leta, J., Araujo, K., & Treiber, S. (2021). Citing a retracted paper: the case of Wakefield’s article that correlates vaccine and autism. In 18th International conference on scientometrics & informetrics, 2021, Leuven (Vol. 01, pp. 645–650).

  • Luwel, M., van Eck, N.J. and van Leeuwen, T.N. (2018). The Schön case: Analyzing in-text citations to papers before and after retraction. In 23rd International conference on science and technology indicators (STI 2018).

  • Meadows, A. J. (1974). Communication in science. Butterworths.

    Google Scholar 

  • Murch, S. H., et al. (2004). Retraction of an interpretation. The Lancet, 363(9411), 750.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Retraction Watch. Retraction Watch. (2020). Retrieved from https://retractionwatch.com/.

  • Steneck, N. H. (2006). Fostering integrity in research: Definitions, current knowledge, and future directions. Science and Engineering Ethics, 12(1), 53–74.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Suelzer, E. M., et al. (2019). Assessment of citations of the retracted article by Wakefield et al with fraudulent claims of an association between vaccination and autism. JAMA Network Open, 2(11), e1915552–e1915552.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Taylor, B., et al. (1999). Autism and measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine: No epidemiological evidence for a causal association. Lancet, 353(9169), 2026–2029.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Teixeira da Silva, J.A., Dobránszki, J. and Bornemann-Cimenti, H. (2016). Citing retracted papers has a negative domino effect on science, education, and society. Impact of Social Sciences Blog. Retrieved from https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2016/12/06/citing-retracted-papers-has-a-negative-domino-effect-on-science-education-and-society/#:~:text=This%20paper%20has%20been%20cited,veracity%20of%20a%20scientific%20claim.&text=Retracted%20papers%20should%20not%20be%20cited.

  • Teixeira da Silva, J. A., & Vuong, Q. H. (2021). Fortification of retraction notices to improve their transparency and usefulness. Learned Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1409

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • The Editors of The Lancet. (2010). Retraction–Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children [retraction of:Wakefield AJ, Murch SH, Anthony A, et al. In: Lancet (1998):351 (9103):637–641]. Lancet. 2010;375(9713):445. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(10)60175-4

  • Thomas, DRh., Salmon, R. L., & King, J. (1998). Rates of first measles-mumps-rubella immunisation in Wales (UK). Lancet, 351, 1927.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Torres-Salinas, D., Robinson-García, N. and Moed, H.F. (2019). Disentangling gold open access. In Springer handbook of science and technology indicators (pp. 129–144). Springer, Cham.

  • Vuong, Q. H. (2020a). The limitations of retraction notices and the heroic acts of authors who correct the scholarly record: An analysis of retractions of papers published from 1975 to 2019. Learned Publishing, 33(2), 119–130.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vuong, Q. H. (2020b). Reform retractions to make them more transparent. Nature, 582, 7811.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wakefield, A. J., et al. (1993). Evidence of persistent measles virus infection in Crohn’s disease. Journal of Medical Virology, 39(4), 345–353.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This work received financial support from CNPq through the doctoral scholarship granted to Stephanie Treiber and the funding awarded to the research project n. 434.146/2018-8. This work is a substantially extended version of the manuscript “Citing a retracted paper: the case of Wakefield’s article that correlates vaccine and autism” that was published in the Conference ISSI 2021 (Leta et al., 2021).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto de Bioquímica Médica, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

    Jacqueline Leta & Stephanie Treiber

  2. Fundação Oswaldo Cruz, Instituto de Comunicação e Informação Científica e Tecnológica em Saúde, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

    Kizi Araujo

Authors
  1. Jacqueline Leta
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Kizi Araujo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Stephanie Treiber
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jacqueline Leta.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Leta, J., Araujo, K. & Treiber, S. Citing documents of Wakefield’s retracted article: the domino effect of authors and journals. Scientometrics 127, 7333–7349 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-022-04353-2

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-022-04353-2

Keywords

Search

Navigation