The Retraction Watch Leaderboard
Who has the most retractions? Here’s our unofficial list (see notes on methodology), which we’ll update as more information comes to light:
- Yoshitaka Fujii (total retractions: 183) Sources: Final report of investigating committee, our reporting
- Joachim Boldt (89) Sources: Editors in chief statement, additional coverage
- Peter Chen (60) Source: SAGE
- Diederik Stapel (54) Source: Our cataloging
- Hua Zhong (41) Source: Journal
- Adrian Maxim (38) Source: IEEE database
- Shigeaki Kato (36) Source: Our cataloging
- Hendrik Schön (36) Sources: PubMed and Thomson Scientific
- Hyung-In Moon (35) Source: Our cataloging
- Naoki Mori (32) Source: PubMed, our cataloging
- James Hunton (31.5, counting partial retraction as half) Source: Our cataloging
- Tao Liu: (29) Source: Journal
- Gideon Goldstein (26)
- Gilson Khang (22) Sources: WebCitation.org, WebCitation.org, journal
- Scott Reuben (22)
- Friedhelm Herrmann (21)
- John Darsee (17)
- Wataru Matsuyama (17)
- Alirio Melendez (17)
- Robert Slutsky (17)
- Ulrich Lichtenthaler (16)
- Maryka Quik (16)
- Khalid Zaman (16)
- Pattium Chiranjeevi (15)
- Marion A. Brach (14)
- Silvia Bulfone-Paus (13)
- Suresh Radhakrishnan (13)
- Jon Sudbø (12)
- Jesus Angel Lemus (12)
- Anil Potti (11.5, counting a partial retraction as a half)
We note that all but three of the top 30 are men, which agrees with the general findings of a 2013 paper suggesting that men are more likely to commit fraud.
Notes:
Many accounts of the John Darsee story cite 80-plus retractions, which would place him third on the list, but Web of Science only lists 17, three of which are categorized as corrections. That’s not the only discrepancy. For example, Fujii has 138 retractions listed in Web of Science, compared to 183 as recommended by a university committee, while Reuben has 18, compared to the 22 named in this paper. We know that not everything ends up in Web of Science — Chen, for example, isn’t there at all — so we’ve used our judgment based on covering these cases to arrive at the highest numbers we could verify.
Shigeaki Kato is likely to end up with 43 retractions, based on the results of a university investigation.
All of this is a good reminder why the database we’re building with the generous support of the MacArthur Foundation will be useful.
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Q number of those in the list have papers that look like they should be retracted but haven’t. I look forward to the “retraction curve”, is it hyperbolic or is it best described by some other function?
Is it possible that crying in the lab and falling in love with the PI make you more honest?
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/voices/furor-over-tim-hunt-must-lead-to-systemic-change/
Marion A. Brach, the other active part in them widely-known “Herrmann-Brach affair”, has 14 retractions: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=brach+m+AND+retracted
Jon Sudbø, formerly at the Norwegian Radium Hospital and the University of Oslo, has 12 retractions. The fabrications in his papers were revealed in 2006. See http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=sudbo+j+AND+retract* and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Sudbø
What about Khalid Zaman, who has 16 retractions – at least according to your own post (http://retractionwatch.com/2014/12/19/elsevier-retracting-16-papers-faked-peer-review/)?
Curious…how many of these leading offenders worked for pharmaceutical/device companies? Given your reference to anesthesiology, it is interesting to note that the editor of “Anesthesia and Analgesia” published that “Anesthesia & Analgesia has experienced its share of fraud. Not a single case, including this one, has involved a study directly sponsored by a drug or device company. Sponsored studies are very closely audited, with each case report form checked against patient and laboratory data.” Keeping an eye on industry (‘the usual suspect’) is understandable, intense, somehow comforting, and helps sell books, but what if the real enemy isn’t within industry?
Some champion chemists will be feeling neglected:
Hua Zhong: 41
http://journals.iucr.org/e/issues/2010/01/00/me0404/index.html
Tao Liu: 29
http://journals.iucr.org/e/issues/2010/01/00/me0405/index.html
Pattium Chiranjeevi: ~30 retracted out of ~70 fakes.
google scholar {(retraction OR retracted) author:”chiranjeevi p”}
http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2008/March/25030801.asp
“We note that all but one of the top 25 are men”
Marion A. Brach (14) Woman
Silvia Bulfone-Paus (13) Woman
I’m very impressed by the rapid updates here, and I stand corrected on Chiranjeevi’s tally. As with Darsee and Fujii, many journals seem to have more important matters to attend to than retracting fakes. Perhaps you could have a leaderboard for journals: the number of fraudulent papers identified in formal investigations that remain unretracted.
One more contender, who sadly won’t make the top ten:
Gilson Khang: 21
http://www.webcitation.org/6VD9lOA5o
http://www.webcitation.org/6VD9x5Ewi
These papers, all in “Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine”, are mentioned in Grieneisen’s 2012 review. I’m glad I archived them, because they have since vanished.
What to do with co-authors? Probably, most of them are “innocent”, of course, and therefore shouldn’t be listed.
However, about Hidenori Toyooka, co-author on several dozens of record holder Fuji’s retracted papers, RW wrote:
The investigators do identify one co-author, Hidenori Toyooka, who appears to have known about the fabrication and yet still co-authored “dozens” of papers with Fujii. According to the report, Toyooka “recognized the suspicion” raised against his colleague in 2000, but “did not take any action.” (http://retractionwatch.com/2012/07/02/does-anesthesiology-have-a-problem-final-version-of-report-suggests-fujii-will-take-retraction-record-with-172/)
Does he “deserve” to be listed?
Another example: Elena Bulanova and Vadim Budagian, the two former postdocs of Silvia Bulfone-Paus, appeared as co-authors on twelve of the thirteen retracted Bulfone-Paus papers. In the formal investigation both were officially blamed responsible for the misconduct in all these twelve papers. See, for example: https://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/new-retraction-of-paper-by-husband-and-wife-research-team/418431.article
I think, those two definitely deserve to be listed.
“Mastuyama” should be “Matsuyama”