Fake scientific publications are a serious and growing problem, Northwestern University researchers say
Researchers at Northwestern University said the number of junk scientific publications is growing, and bad actors are profiting.
"These people are ruining it for all of us," said Northwestern University researcher and professor of engineering science and applied math Luís Amaral.
Amaral and fellow Northwestern researcher Reese Richardson said they have always known there were fake scientific studies floating around.
But it wasn't until they started studying the issue — with the help of several helpful sleuths — that they discovered the problem was much bigger than anyone thought. They showed CBS News Chicago four research papers on four different types of cells — but the papers all "borrowed" the same set of images.
"We did this analysis, and we found out something that was extraordinarily scary," said Amaral. "Essentially, the number of fraudulent papers is doubling every year and a half."
Amaral and Richardson's study on the problem was published earlier this month. In a nutshell, the publication of fraudulent science is outpacing the publication of legitimate science.
"Everywhere we looked, we were seeing indications that there was systematic fraud being produced," Richardson said.
But why would anyone spend the time publishing fake research? Amaral and Richardson say there are two main reasons.
The first is buying a reputation.
"They do this out in the open," said Richardson. "It is not hard to find paper-mill advertisements at all."
Amaral and Richardson showed CBS News Chicago hundreds of advertisements that have appeared online — asking for anywhere from $100 a publication to about $3,000 in exchange for authorship.
The second reason for the fakes is to push for a certain point of view — for example, backing a dietary supplement for financial gain.
"So there are lots of people with a point of view, and it has become very easy for them to make it appear like there are hundreds of experts, thousands of publications that are very highly cited about all of these," said Amaral.
In a 2024 post on his blog, Richardson specifically cited an example of how a researcher with a financial interest in the turmeric industry was able to push fake research on the benefits of turmeric.
Richardson wrote that Bharat Aggarwal, who worked at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston from 1989 to 2015, authored more than 120 articles about the compound curcumin in turmeric — claiming that it therapeutic potential for cancers, Alzheimer's disease, and most recently, COVID-19.
At first, MD Anderson seemed to endorse Aggarwal's research, and the FAQ page on the cancer center's website even recommended that visitors buy curcumin wholesale from a company that paid Aggarwal as a speaker, Richardson wrote. But in 2012, MD Anderson Cancer Center launched a research fraud probe against Aggarwal, which led to the retraction of 30 articles — some of them about curcumin, Richardson wrote.
Still, while Aggarwal retired from MD Anderson in 2015, he has gone on authoring articles and appearing at conferences, Richardson wrote.
Curcumin does not work well as a treatment for any disease, Richardson wrote. But even though Aggarwal's research has been discredited, the volume of studies published on curcumin keeps growing — and they also often show signs of fraud, Richardson wrote.
Amaral and Richardson say they're raising the red flag about the fakes now — at a time when the future of federal funding for some legitimate science is uncertain.
"There is only greater competition, and a more scarce pool of resources, for scientists to use and do genuine science," said Richardson.
"If actually, there is an entire stream of research that is actually making false claims… it puts all of our health at risk," added Amaral.
The authors argue their findings should serve as a wake-up call to the scientific community, which needs to act before we all lose confidence in the scientific process.
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