Poor visibility of retracted articles: a problem that should no longer be ignored

The withdrawal of an article published in an academic journal is “a mechanism for correcting the literature and alerting readers to articles that contain such seriously flawed or erroneous content or data that their findings and conclusions cannot be relied upon. Although retractions are still rare, with around five retractions per 10 000 articles published, rates have increased. Retraction rates were high in the early,acute phase of the covid-19 pandemic--up to four times higher than during outbreaks of other infectious diseases such as HIV, H1N1 influenza, or Ebola. However, the rate is now estimated to be “consistent with the expected overall rate of retraction."