Retracted randomized trials attributed to super-retractors and top-cited scientists with multiple retractions: secondary analysis of the VITALITY retrospective cohort
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Importance
Multiple retractions from the same author often uncover issues affecting their entire work, such as having systematically altered or fabricated data.
Objectives
Evaluate the contribution of authors with most retractions (“super-retractors”) and top-cited scientists with multiple retractions to the retracted clinical trial literature.
Design
Retrospective cohort study, linking an openly available cohort (VITALITY) of 1330 retracted randomized clinical trials (RCTs) to three lists of scientists: super-retractors, totaling most retractions in the Retraction Watch Leaderboard, and top-cited scientists, over the entire career or in the most recent single year, who accumulated 10 or more retractions not due to editor/publisher errors. The VITALITY cohort was updated up to November 2024. The three author lists were updated in August 2025.
Participants
30 super-retractors, 163 career-long and 174 single-year scientists totaling 10 or more retractions.
Main outcomes
Authorship and characteristics of retracted RCTs (publication and retraction year, time between publication and retraction, number of citations).
Results
6/30 super-retractors, representing two subfields of medicine (Anesthesiology and Endocrinology & Metabolism), co-authored 290/1330 retracted RCTs (22%). 18/163 career-long top-cited scientists with at least 10 retractions, representing 10 fields, co-authored 327/1330 trials (25%), 275 (84%) of which were also co-authored by a super-retractor. 7/174 single-year top-cited scientists with at least 10 retractions co-authored 50 retracted trials; all of them were also among the career-long top-cited scientists with at least 10 retractions. Articles with super-retractors authors vs not were published earlier (median (IQR)= 2000 (1997-2005) vs 2020 (2014-2022)); retracted earlier (median (IQR)= 2013 (2012-2019) vs 2023 (2018.5-2023)); had a longer lag between publication and retraction, (median (IQR)= 5111 (3560-6820) vs 482 (330-1119) days); and accrued more citations (median (IQR)= 21 (12-42) vs 5 (1-19)). Results were similar when comparing retracted articles coming from top-cited scientists with at least 10 retractions versus other articles.
Conclusions and relevance
A small number of influential authors, often co-authors and concentrated across few fields of medicine and countries, account for a significant proportion of retracted clinical trials. Concentration in some subfields and countries may reflect either systemic problems in these subfields and countries or better sensitization towards detecting fraud.
Key points
Question
What is the contribution of the authors with most retractions (“super-retractors”) and of those top-cited with multiple retractions to the retracted randomized clinical trials literature?
Findings
Six super-retractors, representing two fields of medicine, co-authored one fifth of all retracted trials, while 18 top-cited scientists with over 10 retractions co-authored a quarter of them. Articles co-authored by super-retractors or by top-cited scientists with multiple retractions were published and retracted earlier, took longer to retract and accumulated more citations.
Meaning
Retracted clinical trials are disproportionately associated with a small number of influential authors, often co-authors and concentrated across few subfields of medicine and countries.
