The Prevalence of Fake Scientific Papers in Medical and Neuroscience Journals
A new fake-paper detector developed by neuropsychologist Bernhard Sabel has found that up to 34% of neuroscience papers published in 2020 were likely made up or plagiarized, while in medicine, the figure was 24%. These numbers are well above levels calculated for 2010 and far larger than the 2% baseline estimated in a 2022 publishers' group report. The rise of paper mills, which allow researchers to pad their publication records by paying for fake papers or undeserved authorship, is a major contributor to the problem. The International Association of Scientific, Technical, and Medical Publishers is leading an effort called the Integrity Hub to develop new tools to combat the issue.