Retraction Of Article Research Articles

Retracted: miR-27b-3p Inhibits Invasion, Migration and Epithelial-mesenchymal Transition in Gastric Cancer by Targeting RUNX1 and Activation of the Hippo Signaling Pathway

The article entitled “miR-27b-3p Inhibits Invasion, Migration and Epithelial-mesenchymal Transition in Gastric Cancer by Targeting RUNX1 and Activation of the Hippo Signaling Pathway”, by Chen-Hui Bao and Lin Guo, has been retracted on the request of the Author in light of the changes to the University’s promotion policy, due to which the article needs further content. Bentham Science apologizes to the readers of the journal for any inconvenience this may have caused. Kindly see Bentham Science Policy on Article retraction at the link https://benthamscience.com/journals/anti-canceragents-in-medicinal-chemistry/editorial-policies/ Bentham Science Disclaimer: It is a condition of publication that manuscripts submitted to this journal have not been published and will not be simultaneously submitted or published elsewhere. Furthermore, any data, illustration, structure, or table that has been published elsewhere must be reported, and copyright permission for reproduction must be obtained. Plagiarism is strictly forbidden, and by submitting the article for publication the authors agree that the publishers have the legal right to take appropriate action against the authors if plagiarism or fabricated information is discovered. By submitting a manuscript, the authors agree that the copyright of their article is transferred to the publishers if and when the article is accepted for publication.

Retraction of: algebro-geometric constructions of the Heisenberg hierarchy

Article Retraction of: algebro-geometric constructions of the Heisenberg hierarchy was published on February 1, 2022 in the journal International Journal of Nonlinear Sciences and Numerical Simulation (volume 23, issue 2).

Comprehensive analysis of retracted journal articles in the field of veterinary medicine and animal health

BackgroundRetractions are a key proxy for recognizing errors in research and publication and for reconciling misconduct in the scientific literature. The underlying factors associated with retractions can provide insight and guide policy for journal editors and authors within a discipline. The goal of this study was to systematically review and analyze retracted articles in veterinary medicine and animal health. A database search for retractions of articles with a veterinary/animal health topic, in a veterinary journal, or by veterinary institution-affiliated authors was conducted from first available records through February 2019 in MEDLINE/PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, Retraction Watch, and Google Scholar. Annual frequency of retractions, journal and article characteristics, author affiliation and country, reasons for retraction, and retraction outcomes were recorded.ResultsTwo-hundred-forty-two articles retracted between 1993 and 2019 were included in the study. Over this period, the estimated rate of retraction increased from 0.03/1000 to 1.07/1000 veterinary articles. Median time from publication to retraction was 478 days (range 0-3653 days). Retracted articles were published in 30 (12.3%) veterinary journals and 132 (81.5%) nonveterinary journals. Veterinary journals had disproportionately more retractions than nonveterinary journals (P = .0155). Authors/groups with ≥2 retractions accounted for 37.2% of retractions. Authors from Iran and China published 19.4 and 18.2% of retracted articles respectively. Authors were affiliated with a faculty of veterinary medicine in 59.1% of retracted articles. Of 242 retractions, 204 (84.3%) were research articles, of which 6.4% were veterinary clinical research. Publication misconduct (plagiarism, duplicate publication, compromised peer review) accounted for 75.6% of retractions, compared with errors (20.6%) and research misconduct (18.2%). Journals published by societies/institutions were less likely than those from commercial publishers to indicate a reason for retraction. Thirty-one percent of HTML articles and 14% of PDFs were available online but not marked as retracted.ConclusionsThe rate of retraction in the field of veterinary and animal health has increased by ~ 10-fold per 1000 articles since 1993, resulting primarily from increased publication misconduct, often by repeat offenders. Veterinary journals and society/institutional journals could benefit from improvement in the quality of retraction notices.

Fraud and Deceit in Medical Research

Fraud and Deceit in Medical Research

Retraction Watch: A tool for informing academia about ethical violations in publications

Retraction is one of the ways to filter low-quality academic publications. Over the last decade, the number of retracted articles from journals has been steadily growing around the world. Information about such articles can be found both on the websites of the retracting journals and in the databases that index these journals. In 2010, two doctors from the United States, Ivan Oransky and Adam Marcus, created an Internet resource – Retraction Watch (RW), which concentrates information obtained as a result of investigations of ethical misconduct leading to retraction of articles. These investigations are conducted by the RW founders themselves, as well as by volunteers. Currently, RW contains information on over 24,000 retractions. The main violations include serious errors in methodology and calculations that lead to incorrect conclusions, manipulation of figures and data, plagiarism and self-citation, duplication of publications, etc. In its posts, RW considers unintentional mistakes, as well as deliberate fraud in order to obtain a position, degree or other benefit. Retractions can result in the withdrawal of academic degrees, dismissal from work, demotion, loss of authority among colleagues. RW posts are released daily and a cumulative RW issue – at the end of each week. The owners of the resource, having no outside funding, offer to subscribe to a paid resource or provide sponsorship assistance to those interested in maintaining and developing it. However, the resource is publicly available, and everyone can subscribe to mailing lists for free. Recent issues have focused on non-peerreviewed articles about COVID-19 that report erroneous scientific findings with possible serious implications for important decisions. In addition, Retraction Watch accumulates information on academic ethics from other sources. This article aims to describe a variety of ethical violations leading to retraction of articles and the consequences of retractions based on RW data. The sample of posts was drawn mainly from the 2021 RW issues.

Retraction of article: Lateral mode suppression and experiment for the ZnO ring thin-film bulk acoustic resonator

摘要 关键词: 99.10.Ln Abstract Keywords: 作者及机构信息 李玉金, 元秀华, 赵茗, 王运河 华中科技大学光学与电子信息学院, 武汉 430074 通信作者: 元秀华, yuanxh@hust.edu.cn Authors and contacts Li Yu-Jin, Yuan Xiu-Hua, Zhao Ming, Wang Yun-He School of Optical and Electronic Information, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China Corresponding author: Yuan Xiu-Hua, yuanxh@hust.edu.cn 文章全文 参考文献 施引文献

Retractions in India since independence: a multifaceted analysis for 75 years through data carpentry

This study aims to explore the nature of article retractions in India for a time frame of 75 years (1947–2021) by developing a comprehensive primary dataset of 1,376 retracted items, and then merging the dataset as developed with an array of external datasets by deploying data carpentry methods and techniques available in OpenRefine, an open-source data wrangling software. This value addition leads to exploring many new angles of study related to retraction in India, like gender distribution, geospatial distribution, institutional distribution, subject distribution in retraction, relations between journal quality and retraction, identification of serial offenders, relations between citation and retraction, and more importantly, reasons for retraction. It discovers many facts about retraction in India and attempts to represent the findings using a few next-generation visualization techniques. The major findings include the following: retraction in India is growing exponentially, and we are now the 4th highest in retraction on a global scale; the majority of the retracted items are published in quality journals in terms of quartile, impact factor, H-Index, and CiteScore; retracted items are distributed in both close-access and open-access source titles; most retracted items are able to fetch citations (mean citation 19.73), including recent citations; a considerable number of retracted items are authored by serial offenders; the retraction map of India includes the majority of the states and union territories; elite educational and research institutes are equally responsible for retraction, along with not-so-known institutes; text manipulation is still the most visible reason for retraction in India, but data manipulation, and image manipulation are increasing rapidly. It also finds that a few cases of retraction are simply due to a lack of awareness on the part of the scholars.

A survey of retractions in the cardiovascular literature

BackgroundRetractions of erroneous and fraudulent papers from the biomedical literature continue to be a major concern. The aim of this analysis is to summarize trends of retractions in the cardiovascular literature over the past four decades. MethodsA review of the Retraction Watch database for retracted articles published between 1978 and 2020 in the cardiovascular literature was performed. Retractions with the term “medicine” in the subject code were selected. Titles and abstracts were reviewed and only retractions of articles in cardiovascular medicine and surgery were included. Results459 retraction notices published in 228 journals were identified. The number of retractions increased with time from 1 in 1991 to 48 at the end of 2019 (P < 0.001). Overall, the yearly percentage of retraction increased during the study period (P < 0.001) but decreased after 2015. China had the highest percentage of retractions when compared to other countries (P < 0.001). The majority of articles were retracted for scientific misconduct (n = 289, 63.0%); retractions due to scientific misconduct increased significantly over the study period (P = 0.04) but decreased after 2015. The median time from publication to retraction was 1.4 years (interquartile range [IQR]: 0.6–3.8) and decreased significantly over time (P < 0.001). The median number of citations of retracted articles was 8.0. ConclusionsThe number of retractions and the yearly percentage of retraction in the cardiovascular literature increased significantly during the study period, although a decrease was seen after 2015. Scientific misconduct represents the most common reason for retraction, although a reduction has been observed in the last five years.

Retraction Notice To: Potential Health Benefits of Broccoli- A Chemico-Biological Overview.

The article "Potential health benefits of broccoli- a chemico-biological overview, published in Mini-Rev Med Chem 2009 Jun;9(6):749-59. By Hannah R. Vasanthi, Subhendu Mukherjee and Dipak K. Das" has been retracted by the Editorial office of the journal Mini-reviews in Medicinal Chemistry, as the text in this review article are from sources which have been retracted or under investigation on the basis of data fabrication and falsification, authorship misconduct, duplicate publication, unethical research practices, text recycling/self-plagiarism, and unresolved concerns about data integrity and research conduct. The authors were informed of this complaint and were requested to give justification on the matter in their defense [1]. Some sources that have been retracted are as follows: 1) Agarwal et al. Dynamic Action of Carotenoids in Cardioprotection and Maintenance of Cardiac Health, Molecules 2012, 17, 4755-4769. http: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24896014/ 2) Nagendran Balasundram, KalyanaSundram, SamirSamman. Phenolic compounds in plants and agri-industrial byproducts: Antioxidant activity, occurrence, and potential uses. Food Chemistry 2006, 99(1), 191-203. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0308814605006242 Bentham Science apologizes to the readers of the journal for any inconvenience this may have caused. The Bentham Editorial Policy on Article Retraction can be found at https://benthamscience.com/editorial-policies-main.php. REFERENCES [1] Hannah R Vasanthi, Subhendu Mukherjee, Dipak K Das. Potential health benefits of broccoli- a chemico-biological overview. Mini Rev Med Chem., 2009, 9(6), 749-759. doi: 10.2174/138955709788452685. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19519500/ Bentham Science Disclaimer: It is a condition of publication that manuscripts submitted to this journal have not been published and will not be simultaneously submitted or published elsewhere. Furthermore, any data, illustration, structure or table that has been published elsewhere must be reported, and copyright permission for reproduction must be obtained. Plagiarism is strictly forbidden, and by submitting the article for publication the authors agree that the publishers have the legal right to take appropriate action against the authors, if plagiarism or fabricated information is discovered. By submitting a manuscript, the authors agree that the copyright of their article is transferred to the publishers if and when the article is accepted for publication.

A Systematic Review of Retractions in the Field of Cardiothoracic and Vascular Anesthesia

No systematic studies on retractions in cardiothoracic and vascular anesthesia exist. The aim of this analysis was to identify characteristics and trends of retractions in this field over the past three decades. A search of the Retraction Watch Database for retracted articles published between 1990 and 2020 in the field of cardiothoracic and vascular anesthesia was performed. A bibliometric study. Five thousand three hundred forty-four retractions with the term "medicine" in the subject code were selected. Retractions of full-length English articles reporting findings in cardiothoracic and vascular anesthesia were included. None. A total of 63 articles published in 31 journals from January 1990 to August 2020 were retracted. The majority were original articles (n=60, 95.2%) and retracted for scientific misconduct (n=50, 79.4%). The percentage of retractions due to misconduct increased from 2010, with a spike in 2011 (n=26/50, 52.0%), and reached a plateau in 2014. The three most common reasons for retraction were misconduct by the author (n=31, 49.2%), duplication (n=12, 19.0%), and errors within the manuscript (n=11, 17.5%). The median time from publication to retraction was 4.3 years (IQR: 1.7-9.4) and decreased significantly over time (p < 0.001). The median impact factor (IF) of the journals that published retracted articles was 3.5 (IQR 2.0-4.5) and decreased significantly over the study period (p < 0.001). Scientific misconduct represents the most common reason for retraction in cardiothoracic and vascular anesthesia. The median time to retraction and journal IF decreased significantly over time. While this is promising, future efforts should be made to screen for falsified data and standardize the processes after retraction to highlight problematic manuscripts.

Philippine Journal of Physical Therapy Crossmark Policy

This document outlines the policies of the Philippine Journal of Physical Therapy regarding the use of the Crossmark system for publishing and linking article corrections and retractions.

The History of Engineered Tracheal Replacements: Interpreting the Past and Guiding the Future.

The development of a tracheal graft to replace long-segment defects has thwarted clinicians and engineers alike for over 100 years. To better understand the challenges facing this field today, we have consolidated all published reports of engineered tracheal grafts used to repair long-segment circumferential defects in humans, from the first in 1898 to the most recent in 2018, totaling 290 clinical cases. Distinct trends emerge in the types of grafts used over time, including repair using autologous fascia, rigid tubes of various inert materials, and pretreated cadaveric allografts. Our analysis of maximum clinical follow-up, as a proxy for graft performance, revealed that the Leuven protocol has a significantly longer clinical follow-up time than all other methods of airway reconstruction. This method involves transplanting a cadaveric tracheal allograft that is first prevascularized heterotopically in the recipient. We further quantified graft-related causes of mortality, revealing failure modes that have been resolved, and those that remain a hurdle, such as graft mechanics. Finally, we briefly summarize recent preclinical work in tracheal graft development. In conclusion, we synthesized top clinical care priorities and design criteria to inform and inspire collaboration between engineers and clinicians toward the development of a functional tracheal replacement graft.Impact statementThe field of tracheal engineering has floundered in recent years due to multiple article retractions. However, with recent advances in biofabrication and tissue analysis techniques, the field remains ripe for advancement through collaboration between engineers and clinicians. With a long history of clinical application of tracheal replacements, engineered tracheas are arguably the regenerative technology with the greatest potential for translation. This work describes the many phases of engineered tracheal replacements that have been applied in human patients over the past 100 years with the goal of carrying forward critical lessons into development of the next generation of engineered tracheal graft.

Retracted article: Kalyakulin S.Yu., Kuzmin V.V., Mitin E.V., Suldin S.P., Tyurbeeva T.B. Synthesis of the Structure of Technological Processes. Inzhenerernyye tekhnologii i sistemy = Engineering Technologies and Systems. 2020; 30(2):287-299. DOI: 10.15507/2658-4123.030.202002.287-299 (In Russ.)

This article by Sergey Yu. Kalyakulin (rim-tm@mail.ru), Vladimir V. Kuzmin (kvv2607@yandex.ru), Eduard V. Mitin (rimnauka@rambler.ru), Sergey P. Suldin (rimstanok@mail.ru), Tatyana B. Tyurbeeva (turbeev@mail.ru) has been retracted (i.e. withdrawn from the press) by the editor with permission of the publisher. The reason for the article retraction is detection of large-scale borrowings from the book: Kuzmin V.V., Skhirtladze A.G. [Mathematical Modeling of Technological Processes of Assembly and Machining of Mechanical Engineering Products]. Moscow: Higher School Publ.; 2008. 280 p. ISBN: 978-5-06-004837-7 (In Russ.)

Retracted article: Kalyakulin S.Yu., Kuzmin V.V., Mitin E.V., Suldin S.P., Tyurbeeva T.B. Designing the Structure of Technological Processes Based on Synthesis. Vestnik Mordovskogo universiteta = Mordovia University Bulletin. 2018; 28(1):77–84. DOI: 10.15507/0236-2910.028.201801.077-084 (In Russ.)

This article by Sergey Yu. Kalyakulin (rim-tm@mail.ru), Vladimir V. Kuzmin (kvv2607@yandex.ru), Eduard V. Mitin (rimnauka@rambler.ru), Sergey P. Suldin (rimstanok@mail.ru), Tatyana B. Tyurbeeva (turbeev@mail.ru) has been retracted (i.e. withdrawn from the press) by the editor with permission of the publisher. The reason for the article retraction is detection of large-scale borrowings from the article: Kuzmin V.V., Maksimovskiy D.E. Choice of Technological Bases on the Basis of the Decision of a Direct Problem of the Dimensional Analysis. Vestnik MGTU STANKIN = MSTU STANKIN Bulletin. 2012; (2):64-69. (In Russ.)

Retraction Notice: Titanium and Vanadium Complexes as Anticancer Agents

&lt;p&gt;The article entitled “Titanium and vanadium complexes as anticancer agents”, by Kostova I., has been retracted. Kindly see Bentham Science Policy on Article retraction at the link given below: &lt;p&gt; (https://benthamscience.com/journals/anti-cancer-agents-in-medicinal-chemistry/author-guidelines/). This article has been retracted on the request of the Editor. &lt;p&gt; The authors have plagiarized a paper that had already been published in the journal Current Medicinal Chemistry, 2000, 7(12), 1289-1303. https://www.eurekaselect.com/65771/article. &lt;p&gt; It is a pre-requisite for authors to declare explicitly that their work is original and has not been published elsewhere. Authors are advised to properly cite the original source to avoid plagiarism and copyright violation. As such this article represents a severe abuse of the scientific publishing system. Bentham Science Publishers takes a very strong view on this matter and apologizes to the readers of the journal for any inconvenience this may cause. &lt;p&gt; The Bentham Editorial Policy on Article Retraction can be found at https://benthamscience.com/editorial-policiesmain. php. &lt;p&gt; Bentham Science Disclaimer &lt;p&gt; It is a condition of publication that manuscripts submitted to this journal have not been published and will not be simultaneously submitted or published elsewhere. Furthermore, any data, illustration, structure or table that has been published elsewhere must be reported, and copyright permission for reproduction must be obtained. Plagiarism is strictly forbidden, and by submitting the article for publication the authors agree that the publishers have the legal right to take appropriate action against the authors, if plagiarism or fabricated information is discovered. By submitting a manuscript, the authors agree that the copyright of their article is transferred to the publishers if and when the article is accepted for publication.

Media and social media attention to retracted articles according to Altmetric.

The number of retracted articles has grown fast. However, the extent to which researchers and the public are made adequately aware of these retractions and how the media and social media respond to them remains unknown. Here, we aimed to evaluate the media and social media attention received by retracted articles and assess also the attention they receive post-retraction versus pre-retraction. We downloaded all records of retracted literature maintained by the Retraction Watch Database and originally published between January 1, 2010 to December 31, 2015. For all 3,008 retracted articles with a separate DOI for the original and its retraction, we downloaded the respective Altmetric Attention Score (AAS) (from Altmetric) and citation count (from Crossref), for the original article and its retraction notice on June 6, 2018. We also compared the AAS of a random sample of 572 retracted full journal articles available on PubMed to that of unretracted full articles matched from the same issue and journal. 1,687 (56.1%) of retracted research articles received some amount of Altmetric attention, and 165 (5.5%) were even considered popular (AAS>20). 31 (1.0%) of 2,953 with a record on Crossref received >100 citations by June 6, 2018. Popular articles received substantially more attention than their retraction, even after adjusting for attention received post-retraction (Median difference, 29; 95% CI, 17-61). Unreliable results were the most frequent reason for retraction of popular articles (32; 19%), while fake peer review was the most common reason (421; 15%) for the retraction of other articles. In comparison to matched articles, retracted articles tended to receive more Altmetric attention (23/31 matched groups; P-value, 0.01), even after adjusting for attention received post-retraction. Our findings reveal that retracted articles may receive high attention from media and social media and that for popular articles, pre-retraction attention far outweighs post-retraction attention.

Retraction Notice: Tocotrienols and its Role in Cardiovascular Health- a Lead for Drug Design.

The article has been retracted by the Editorial office of the journal Current Pharmaceutical Design, due to some inconsistencies in the article [1]. The article appeared to be copied verbatim from published papers. Upon checking these facts, we have established that considerable portions of this review are made up of text copied verbatim from other published material. The Publisher has retracted this article in accordance with good ethical practices. REFERENCE [1] Vasanthi HR, Parameswari RP and Das DK. Tocotrienols and its Role in Cardiovascular Health- a Lead for Drug Design. Curr Pharm Des 2011; 17(21): 2170-5. Bentham Science apologizes to the readers of the journal for any inconvenience this may have caused. The Bentham Editorial Policy on Article Retraction can be found at https://benthamscience.com/editorial-policies-main.php. Bentham Science Disclaimer: It is a condition of publication that manuscripts submitted to this journal have not been published and will not be simultaneously submitted or published elsewhere. Furthermore, any data, illustration, structure or table that has been published elsewhere must be reported, and copyright permission for reproduction must be obtained. Plagiarism is strictly forbidden, and by submitting the article for publication the authors agree that the publishers have the legal right to take appropriate action against the authors, if plagiarism or fabricated information is discovered. By submitting a manuscript, the authors agree that the copyright of their article is transferred to the publishers if and when the article is accepted for publication.

Influence of accessibility (open and toll-based) of scholarly publications on retractions

We have examined retracted publications in different subject fields and attempted to analyse whether online free accessibility (Open Access) influences retraction by examining the scholarly literature published from 2000 through 2019, an incidence of the recent 20 years of publications. InCites, a research analytics tool developed by Clarivate Analytics®, in consultation with Web of Science, PubMed Central, and Retraction Watch databases were used to harvest data for the study. Retracted ‘Article’ and ‘Review’ publications were examined concerning their online accessibility mode (Toll Access and Open Access), based on non-parametric tests like Odds Ratio, Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test, Mann–Whitney U Test, Mann–Kendall and Sen’s methods. The Odds for OA articles to have retraction are about 1.62 as large (62% higher) compared with TA articles (95% CI 1.5, 1.7). 0.028% of OA publications are retracted compared with 0.017% TA publications. Retractions have occurred in all subject areas. In eight subject areas, the Odds for retraction of OA articles are larger compared with retraction of TA articles. In three subject areas, the Odds for retraction of OA articles are lesser compared with the retraction of TA articles. In the remaining 11 subject areas, no significant difference is observed. Post-retraction, though a decline is observed in the citation count of OA & TA publications (p < .01), yet the Odds for OA articles to get cited after retraction are about 1.21 as large (21% higher) compared with TA articles (95% CI 1.53, 1.72). TA publications are retracted earlier compared to OA publications (p < .01). We observed an increasing trend of retracted works published in both modes. However, the rate of retraction of OA publications is double than the rate of retraction of TA publications.

Publications and retracted articles of COVID-19 pharmacotherapy-related research: A systematic review.

The current COVID-19 pandemic situation has stimulated an unplanned clinical research paradigm which is evident from the surge of clinical trial registrations and the increasing number of COVID-related publications. We aimed to explore the standards for research conduction, publications and retraction of articles related to COVID-19 pharmacotherapy research during the pandemic. We analysed data from the contemporary literatures on studies reporting pharmacological agents for COVID-19 using MEDLINE, PubMed, WHO database and Google Scholar between January 01, 2020 and March 20, 2021. The initial search revealed a total of 61,801 articles. Based on the inclusion criteria, a total of 124 studies related to various pharmacological agents were included in the final analysis. Most of the studies were reported from the United States (n = 30, 24%). Of the 124 studies, 50 (40%) were randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Immunomodulatory drugs-related (n = 17, 34%) and COVID-19 vaccine-related studies (n = 14, 28%) were the main topics in the relevant RCTs. The median days for dissemination of findings in journals were 114 days (IQR 61-189). A comparative analysis revealed that RCTs were disseminated earlier (median 79 days; IQR 52-131) when compared to observational studies (median = 144 days; IQR 69-206) (p = 0.003). Six papers were retracted from high impact journals; in which the average period till publication was 33 days. Retraction of papers occurred within 10-48 days. Expedited reviews, research approval and early publications of COVID-19 related pharmaceutical studies could have an impact on the quality of publications. However, the huge number of publications in short time creates confusion for readers during the early phases of the pandemic. Retraction of papers is alarming but ensures research integrity and correctness of scientific information. These abbreviated processes could affect patient care and public awareness. It is imperative to follow rapid but rigours ethical standards for research approval and peer-review process for publications during health pandemics.

Littérature médicale et COVID-19 : comment trois articles ont influencé les médias et la décision publique en France

The present article details the publication process and the vicissitudes of three articles about SARS-CoV-2 and its related disease (COVID-19). The three articles were published one month apart between March and May 2020. Their mediatization led French health authorities to intervene. Our article does not focus on and does not assess the scientific quality of the articles presented, but only aims to open the reflection on medical publication. Beyond the description of these three specific cases, this article raises issues about article retraction, peer-reviewing, preprints, authorship and the dissemination of scientific medical information, including through the mass media. It discusses new publishing modes and the dissemination of published information in clinical research.