Understanding retractions

Why papers are retracted

A retraction notice says why a paper was withdrawn. The reasons range from fabricated data to ethics approval problems to results that simply could not be repeated.

• COPE says unreliable content behind a retraction can come from honest error, naive mistakes, or research or publication misconduct.¹
• ICMJE says inappropriate methodology can also lead to retraction, and that errors serious enough to invalidate results and conclusions may require it.^2,3
• Fabricated data: a European Journal of Social Psychology notice said an article by Diederik Stapel contained data that he had fabricated.⁴
• Results that could not be reproduced: Pamela Ronald's group retracted a 2009 Science paper saying they could not consistently reproduce a key figure.⁵
• Ethics approval: journals of the American Society for Microbiology retracted papers by Didier Raoult citing the severity of the research ethics breach.⁶
• Missing or unreliable data: the 2023 Nature retraction of a Tessier-Lavigne paper cited image anomalies, incorrect conclusions and the lack of original data.⁷

Sources

1. Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), Retraction guidelines (version 3) (4 September 2025)
2. International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), Scientific misconduct, expressions of concern, and retraction
3. International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), Corrections and version control
4. Retraction Watch, Diederik Stapel now has 58 retractions (8 December 2015)
5. Retraction Watch, Pamela Ronald does the right thing again, retracting a Science paper (10 October 2013)
6. Retraction Watch, Journals retract six Didier Raoult papers for ethics violations (8 January 2024)
7. Nature, Retraction Note: APP binds DR6 to trigger axon pruning and neuron death via distinct caspases (18 December 2023)