Two Dutch researchers were preparing a review of preclinical animal models for hemorrhagic stroke last July when they stumbled across a disturbing pattern in the literature.
First, they found many more papers on the topic than the 50 or so they expected based on their experience: more than 600. Also, nearly every study proposed a different intervention, which was "very unusual," said René Aquarius, a neurosurgery researcher at Radboud University Medical Center in the Netherlands.
The researchers’ investigation revealed unexpected overlaps between data in three papers of a neurosurgical group in Taiwan. They kept digging, and found problems in a total of 24 of the group’s papers which reused the same data while purporting to show different experimental conditions. Their efforts so far have led to nine retractions and two corrections. But the problems in the field extend far beyond this one group in Taiwan, they say.
