Article Retraction by Country

China was the leading country of origin for retracted publications, with 30% of the publications included in a study of Wang et al. 1). This category was followed closely by the United States, accounting for 25% of the retracted publications. A study by Amos in 2014 also reported that China had the most retracted publications because of plagiarism and duplicate publications 2).

Fang et al. 3) also found that the top 3 countries with the most retracted publications for these reasons were the United States, China, and India, which is in keeping with the results of Wang et al.

1)
Wang J, Ku J, Alotaibi NM, Rutka JT. Retraction of Neurosurgical Publications: A Systematic Review. World Neurosurg. 2017 Apr 12. pii: S1878-8750(17)30509-0. doi: 10.1016/j.wneu.2017.04.014. [Epub ahead of print] Review. PubMed PMID: 28412480.
2)
Amos KA. The ethics of scholarly publishing: exploring differences in plagiarism and duplicate publication across nations. J Med Libr Assoc. 2014; 102:87-91.
3)
Fang FC, Steen RG, Casadevall A. Misconduct accounts for the majority of retracted scientific publications. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012;109: 17028-17033.