{"id":407808,"date":"2025-10-12T15:34:19","date_gmt":"2025-10-12T13:34:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=407808"},"modified":"2025-10-12T15:34:21","modified_gmt":"2025-10-12T13:34:21","slug":"paper-chase-a-global-industry-fuels-scientific-fraud-in-the-u-s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=407808","title":{"rendered":"Paper Chase: A Global Industry Fuels Scientific Fraud in the U.S."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"723\" height=\"407\" data-attachment-id=\"407810\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?attachment_id=407810\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/0AQOEhUmD6wjhGGXr_0KFsjw3VVsaiH5ydpoS3VddfqojH_9v52zGbSNsM-9EdDE8igha5rys2AsD_Y0TMo5mLDS0s0KIQqgq3cCymfsDd2HVyk-abWeQDV1hZDUzKMDP-1.png?fit=1440%2C810&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"1440,810\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"0AQOEhUmD6wjhGGXr_0KFsjw3VVsaiH5ydpoS3VddfqojH_9v52zGbSNsM-9EdDE8igha5rys2AsD_Y0TMo5mLDS0s0KIQqgq3cCymfsDd2HVyk-abWeQDV1hZDUzKMDP (1)\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/0AQOEhUmD6wjhGGXr_0KFsjw3VVsaiH5ydpoS3VddfqojH_9v52zGbSNsM-9EdDE8igha5rys2AsD_Y0TMo5mLDS0s0KIQqgq3cCymfsDd2HVyk-abWeQDV1hZDUzKMDP-1.png?fit=723%2C407&amp;ssl=1\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/0AQOEhUmD6wjhGGXr_0KFsjw3VVsaiH5ydpoS3VddfqojH_9v52zGbSNsM-9EdDE8igha5rys2AsD_Y0TMo5mLDS0s0KIQqgq3cCymfsDd2HVyk-abWeQDV1hZDUzKMDP-1.png?resize=723%2C407&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"A group of three individuals dressed in lab coats and sunglasses, with one person in the foreground intently reading a document.\" class=\"wp-image-407810\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/0AQOEhUmD6wjhGGXr_0KFsjw3VVsaiH5ydpoS3VddfqojH_9v52zGbSNsM-9EdDE8igha5rys2AsD_Y0TMo5mLDS0s0KIQqgq3cCymfsDd2HVyk-abWeQDV1hZDUzKMDP-1.png?resize=1024%2C576&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/0AQOEhUmD6wjhGGXr_0KFsjw3VVsaiH5ydpoS3VddfqojH_9v52zGbSNsM-9EdDE8igha5rys2AsD_Y0TMo5mLDS0s0KIQqgq3cCymfsDd2HVyk-abWeQDV1hZDUzKMDP-1.png?resize=300%2C169&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/0AQOEhUmD6wjhGGXr_0KFsjw3VVsaiH5ydpoS3VddfqojH_9v52zGbSNsM-9EdDE8igha5rys2AsD_Y0TMo5mLDS0s0KIQqgq3cCymfsDd2HVyk-abWeQDV1hZDUzKMDP-1.png?resize=768%2C432&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/0AQOEhUmD6wjhGGXr_0KFsjw3VVsaiH5ydpoS3VddfqojH_9v52zGbSNsM-9EdDE8igha5rys2AsD_Y0TMo5mLDS0s0KIQqgq3cCymfsDd2HVyk-abWeQDV1hZDUzKMDP-1.png?resize=1200%2C675&amp;ssl=1 1200w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/0AQOEhUmD6wjhGGXr_0KFsjw3VVsaiH5ydpoS3VddfqojH_9v52zGbSNsM-9EdDE8igha5rys2AsD_Y0TMo5mLDS0s0KIQqgq3cCymfsDd2HVyk-abWeQDV1hZDUzKMDP-1.png?w=1440&amp;ssl=1 1440w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 723px) 100vw, 723px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/wattsupwiththat.com\/2025\/10\/08\/paper-chase-a-global-industry-fuels-scientific-fraud-in-the-u-s\/\">Watts Up With That?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/wattsupwiththat.com\/authors\/vince_bielski\/\">Vince Bielski<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In southern India, a new enterprise called Peer Publicon Consultancy offers a full suite of services to scientific researchers. It will not only write a scholarly paper for a fee but also guarantee publishing the fraudulent work in a respected journal.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It is one of many \u201cpaper mills\u201d that have emerged across Asia and Eastern Europe over the last two decades. Paper mills are having remarkable success peddling tens of thousands of bogus academic journal papers and authorships to university and medical researchers seeking to pad their resumes in highly competitive fields.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">These sophisticated outfits also engage in trickery to get papers published, infiltrating journals with their own editors and reviewers and even resorting to bribery, according to investigators and a white paper from Wiley, a New Jersey-based publisher. The scale of the fraud is eye-popping: One Wiley subsidiary, Hindawi,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/retractionwatch.com\/2023\/12\/19\/hindawi-reveals-process-for-retracting-more-than-8000-paper-mill-articles\/\">retracted<\/a>&nbsp;more than&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.chemistryworld.com\/news\/china-conducts-nationwide-audit-of-research-misconduct-after-thousands-of-papers-retracted\/4018981.article\">8,000 articles<\/a>&nbsp;two years ago for suspected paper mill involvement.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">U.S. universities and regulators have been able to brush off the threat of paper mills because they have mostly sold their services in China, where research integrity standards are rarely enforced, according to&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/10.1177\/20966083221143545\">experts<\/a>. But these rogue operators are building on their success in Asia and expanding to the U.S. and Western Europe, where the prize is the prestige of naming an author on an article from a famous university.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cPaper mills have become a huge business,\u201d said Jennifer Byrne, professor of molecular oncology at the University of Sydney, who studies the enterprises. \u201cIf some journals are pushing back on papers from China, and they probably are, it makes sense that paper mills will try to diversify their clientele and start working with people in different countries.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp;As paper mills expand from the fringe to the center of research, placing professional-looking articles in high-impact journals owned by major publishers like Springer Nature, experts worry about the potential harm to scientific discovery. Researchers willing to break the rules in a Darwinian world of \u2018publish or perish\u2019 may mislead other scientists who incorporate their false findings into their own work. \u201cWe know little about the actual impact of paper mills on research,\u201d Byrne says. \u201cBut if scientists are building on bad information, they are wasting resources and not making progress in their fields.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Paper Mills Spread to the West<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Paper mills appear to be expanding at a rapid clip, aided by AI that enables them to overwhelm journals with dozens of papers in a short period of time, adding to the challenge of detecting fakes. A&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/publicationethics.org\/guidance\/research-and-reports\/paper-mills-research\">study<\/a>&nbsp;by the Committee on Publishing Ethics (COPE) revealed that, on average, journals suspected about 2% of submitted papers came from mills about five years ago. After journals published fake papers, however, the paper mills saw the opening and pounced, accounting for nearly half of new submissions.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In a corrupt echo of&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.intel.com\/content\/www\/us\/en\/history\/virtual-vault\/articles\/moores-law.html\">Moore\u2019s Law<\/a>, a 2024&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.pnas.org\/doi\/10.1073\/pnas.2420092122\">study<\/a>&nbsp;concluded that the number of suspected paper mill articles has been doubling every 18 months, \u201cfar outpacing that of legitimate science.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Researchers in the West appear to be a small but important part of the expansion. Journals have retracted more than 140 papers that name a U.S. co-author because of evidence of organized fraud, and almost 200 retracted papers name a co-author from Western Europe, according to data collected by watchdog group Retraction Watch and analyzed by Cristina Candal Pedreira, an assistant professor at the University of Santiago de Compostela in Spain. Scholars at many leading U.S. universities, including the University of California, Emory University, Georgia Tech, and the University of Texas, have co-authored papers linked to paper mills in recent years.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The retraction notice for a 2022 paper co-authored by computer scientist Yanhui Guo, a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.uis.edu\/news\/college-education-and-human-services\/ai\/uis-awards-schewe-professorship-yanhui-guo-ai-research-education\">rising star<\/a>&nbsp;in the field of AI at the University of Illinois Springfield, is typical.&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1155\/2023\/9829813\">Wiley said<\/a>&nbsp;its investigation of Guo\u2019s paper \u201cuncovered evidence of systematic manipulation of the publication and peer-review process. We cannot, therefore, vouch for the reliability or integrity of this article.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s difficult to know what role, if any, the U.S. researchers had in collaborating with a paper mill. Assuming the paper is a fake, a U.S. co-author could have purchased it or secured an authorship position on it, or they may have been unaware that a paper mill was involved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Guo\u2019s retracted article illustrates the different possibilities. It has six authors from five countries \u2013 a wide geographical spread that\u2019s common on articles from paper mills, which sell authorship slots worldwide, says Elisabeth Bik, a California microbiologist who investigates scientific misconduct. Indeed, Guo could be unaware that another co-coauthor was collaborating with a paper mill, if that occurred.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It should be up to universities to answer ethical questions about their faculty. But misconduct investigations are cloaked in secrecy. Asked if the university is investigating why two of Guo\u2019s papers were retracted, a spokesperson said, \u201cUIS is following standard protocols and cannot comment further.\u201d Guo didn\u2019t respond to several requests for comment from RealClearInvestigations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Many U.S. researchers who co-authored suspect papers were born in another country and came to the U.S. as young scholars to make their names. Mohammed Ali Al-Garadi obtained his Ph.D. in computer science in Malaysia before joining Emory University in Atlanta as a postdoctoral researcher in 2019, according to his IEEE&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/ieeexplore.ieee.org\/author\/37086039867\">profile<\/a>. While at Emory, he was one of nine authors from seven countries on a 2021 paper that three years later was&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/articles\/PMC8434904\/\">retracted<\/a>&nbsp;by a Wiley journal because of \u201cindicators of systematic manipulation of the publication process.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In 2022, Al-Garadi landed a plum job at highly ranked Vanderbilt University, where he\u2019s a research assistant professor in biomedical informatics. Al-Garadi and Vanderbilt didn\u2019t respond to questions about the retracted paper, one of two of his articles&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.1007\/s11042-017-5045-7\">yanked<\/a>&nbsp;from a journal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When more prominent U.S. researchers are named on alleged paper mill articles, experts say \u201cname theft\u201d might be involved. A scholar such as Jonathan Koomey, who has taught at Stanford University and has written more than 200 articles and reports and 10 books, would have no apparent motive to conspire with a paper mill. The mill, however, would have a motive to put his name on a paper without his knowledge to give it more credibility with a publisher.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Koomey says he had no idea that his name and prestigious affiliation \u2013 Stanford \u2013 appeared on a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/abs\/10.3233\/JIFS-179081\">retracted<\/a>&nbsp;paper by a Sage journal until RCI recently asked him about it. Koomey\u2019s name was listed with four scholars from China on a paper about an English oral evaluation algorithm. Koomey\u2019s specialty is another field altogether: energy and climate change.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThis is a paper to which I never contributed and have no idea who these authors are,\u201d said Koomey. \u201cThey just stuck my name on the paper without my knowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When U.C. Berkeley retired senior researcher Xiao-Yun Lu recently discovered that he was also a victim of name theft on two&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1155\/2023\/9769504\">retracted<\/a>&nbsp;papers linked to paper mills, he was alarmed. \u201cI must stop this from happening immediately,\u201d he told RCI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Lu believed the lead author of the papers, Yi He, a former&nbsp;post-doctoral student at Berkeley, was responsible. So Lu emailed He, who now works at Wuhan University of Technology in China, and told him to follow proper scientific methods in his work and to stop putting his name on papers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe research approaches, data and results all need to be scientific and objective,\u201d Lu wrote to He in a September email shared with RCI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He responded, defending the retracted papers as \u201coriginal achievements\u201d and assured Lu that he won\u2019t use his name on papers in the future. \u201cI apologize&nbsp;for the trouble&nbsp;caused to you,\u201d He wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>How Paper Mills Operate<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Wiley, a major academic publisher with 1,600 journals, has warned that its industry faces a \u201cdeepening crisis\u201d from paper mills. They first appeared about 15 years ago, and many have evolved into sophisticated businesses, producing complex papers with all the trappings of science. Mills appear to hire scientists, perhaps drawing from the surplus of Ph.Ds., and include lab facilities in their sales pitch.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The basic business model is selling authorship slots, if not the entire paper, to scholars on a wide variety of topics, from cancer research to economics to education, according to the COPE report. Paper mills write the articles, create charts based on online or fabricated data, respond to queries from editors, and guarantee publication in journals indexed to essential platforms like the Web of Science. It\u2019s a wall-to-wall scam so convincing that journal editors, who are typically unpaid and have limited time for vetting papers, are easily deceived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Researchers pay more for papers published in high-impact journals and for being the first listed author. While getting named on a low-profile conference paper might cost only $100, the price might jump to $1,200 for the first position in an influential journal, said a source in the academic publishing industry who asked to remain anonymous. \u201cThe highest fee I have heard of is $8,500.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Paper mills operate with a remarkable degree of transparency, advertising their illicit services online to attract customers, with little concern that they will be shut down. They also offer legitimate services that can serve as camouflage for illegitimate ones.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/cjertrust.org\/peerpublicon-consultancy\">website<\/a>&nbsp;of India\u2019s Peer Publicon Consultancy, for instance, leads off with an offer to correct the grammar and spelling on medical-related papers. That\u2019s fine. Then comes the offer of help in every facet of writing and publishing a literature review article for about $300. Dig deeper to find this&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/document\/d\/1ucrHRAoDhw5RESIz7NqmlGZF_UIgVCaXBWO5TuEk-yQ\/edit?tab=t.0\">suspect offer<\/a>: \u201cYou can join as a co-author for the review articles we prepare for publication in indexed journals.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">RCI reached out to Professor P. Mutha Prasanna, a managing director of a group that oversees Peer Publicon. He is also a co-author of a highly cited paper that is full of&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/pubpeer.com\/publications\/1F83FD21D22221263173345AAA19F5\">plagiarized text<\/a>, according to Elisabeth Bik, the integrity consultant. Prasanna told RCI that the paper \u201cwas drafted mainly by another author\u201d and that Peer Publicon \u201cwas recently launched and it has nothing to do with that paper.\u201d He didn\u2019t answer questions about Peer Publicon\u2019s activities.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In Russia, a paper mill called&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/123mi-ru.translate.goog\/index.php?_x_tr_sl=ru&amp;_x_tr_tl=en&amp;_x_tr_hl=en&amp;_x_tr_pto=wapp&amp;_x_tr_sch=http\">International Publisher<\/a>&nbsp;says it operates in a glassy tower in central Moscow and claims to have published more than 4,000 papers, some in high-impact journals. \u201cWe can help teach authors how to write articles that will be accepted into international journals,\u201d according to its website. \u201cWe can also handle any aspects of the work ourselves.\u201d That includes enhancing the \u201cscientific value of the article (improving the research, updating the relevance and analysis, logically organizing the content, strengthening the conclusion).\u201d The pricing is laid out in a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/123mi-ru.translate.goog\/prices.php?_x_tr_sl=ru&amp;_x_tr_tl=en&amp;_x_tr_hl=en&amp;_x_tr_pto=wapp&amp;_x_tr_sch=http\">chart<\/a>: Writing or revising a paper costs $2,400, and getting it published in a top-ranked journal is an additional $4,200.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Anna Abalkina, a research fellow at the Institute for East European Studies of the Free University of Berlin,&nbsp;brought unwanted scrutiny to the paper mill with her 2023&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1002\/leap.1574\">study<\/a>. International Publisher had listed on its website the titles of papers with co-authorship slots for sale. Abalkina matched the titles with those that were later published, identifying at least 451 papers co-authored by more than 800 scholars over a three-year period. International Publisher didn\u2019t respond to a request for comment.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Russian paper mill has extended its reach into the United States. A student at an East Coast university put her name on two published&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/pubpeer.com\/publications\/30384F5AAFD83EFC4757FB3B6736D8\">papers<\/a>&nbsp;with titles that first appeared, almost word for word, on articles for sale on International Publisher\u2019s website. The Russian company also publicizes a long list of&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/123mi-ru.translate.goog\/spisok-recensentov.php?_x_tr_sl=ru&amp;_x_tr_tl=en&amp;_x_tr_hl=en&amp;_x_tr_pto=wapp&amp;_x_tr_sch=http\">U.S. universities<\/a>&nbsp;that it claims provide \u201creviewers\u201d for its articles.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After Abalkina\u2019s study was published, she says the paper mill tried to cover its tracks. It published thousands of abstracts of legitimate papers on its website, claiming it had helped to get them published. \u201cSome of the legit authors complained to a prosecutor,\u201d she said. \u201cBut the paper mill continues to operate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Secretly Infiltrating Journals<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Producing fraudulent articles is only part of the paper mill contagion. They have also infiltrated journals to get them published.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Journal editors commonly ask authors to recommend scientists who can peer review their work, which theoretically should provide a shield against publishing fake research. But when a mill produces the article, it sometimes recommends its own reviewers who then provide positive feedback to editors about a bogus article, according to the COPE report. In 2021, a SAGE journal&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/retractionwatch.com\/2021\/12\/15\/journal-retracts-122-papers-at-once\/\">pulled<\/a>&nbsp;122 published papers because of \u201cclear indications that the submission and\/or peer review process \u2026 was manipulated.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When publishers seek outside editors for special issues, a popular practice, paper mills have also taken advantage of the opportunity to fill the temporary role. These \u201cguest editors\u201d then fill the special issues with rubbish articles and fabricated authors. A Chinese paper mill boasted about bribing a guest editor with a thousand dollars per paper for a special issue by publisher Hindawi, according to a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/forbetterscience.com\/2024\/01\/31\/welcome-agent-cooperate-with-us\/\">report<\/a>&nbsp;in For Better Science. The widespread&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wiley.com\/en-us\/network\/publishing\/research-publishing\/open-access\/hindawi-publication-manipulation-whitepaper\">infiltration<\/a>&nbsp;of Hindawi\u2019s special issues led to the mass retractions and the closing of the Hindawi brand by Wiley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Journals that focus on human gene research appear to be a favorite&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/academic.oup.com\/nar\/article\/50\/21\/12058\/6880717\">target<\/a>&nbsp;of paper mills, partly because experimental results are simple to fabricate, according to Sydney\u2019s Byrne. Her research shows that paper mills, which in the past appeared to focus on marginal journals because they may be easier to penetrate, have moved up the food chain, presenting a greater threat to cancer research.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Byrne and other researchers found that two top-rated high-impact cancer journals from Springer Nature, Molecular Cancer, and Oncogene, have published a significant number of papers with wrongly identified nucleotide sequences that suggest&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/38194106\/\">foul play<\/a>&nbsp;in many cases. Over a span of years ending in 2020, 18% of the Molecular Cancer papers examined in the study contained errors, as did 40% of the 2020 Oncogene papers.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cAlthough we can\u2019t be sure that all of these papers with nucleotide sequence errors came from paper mills, at least some of these papers seem likely to have been produced with paper mill support,\u201d Byrne said.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As paper mills penetrate more influential journals, they may also be collaborating with a significant number of Western researchers who seek such top-shelf exposure. While most of the co-authors of the problematic papers in Molecular Cancer are in China, 8% are in the U.S., and 11% are in Western Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Battle Against Paper Mills<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Despite the work of scientists like Bik, Abalkina, and Byrne to expose paper mills, there\u2019s not much getting in the way of their expansion. In the U.S., much of the responsibility rests with universities and their research integrity officers. But they face&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.realclearinvestigations.com\/articles\/2025\/08\/13\/fraud_hunters_sniffing_out_bogus_science_1128482.html\">institutional hurdles<\/a>, from researchers afraid to blow the whistle on colleagues to pressure from university leaders to slow-walk investigations that could taint an academic institution\u2019s reputation.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">University officials may not even know that a faculty member has been subjected to a retraction. A North Carolina State University computer science professor still&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/csc.ncsu.edu\/people\/djthuent\/\">posts<\/a>&nbsp;his paper on the school\u2019s website without noting that it was&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/10.3233\/JIFS-219434\">retracted<\/a>&nbsp;by a Sage journal in 2023 due to concerns that could include \u201cunauthorized third party involvement\u201d and \u201cunverifiable authors and reviewers.\u201d The researcher didn\u2019t respond to a request for comment.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In response to the onslaught of fraudulent scholarship, journals are bolstering their efforts against paper mills. A Wiley spokesperson told RCI it has developed AI-powered detection systems to&nbsp;intercept suspect papers before they reach peer review while also scaling up its internal integrity teams. Some publishers, such as Taylor &amp; Francis, are&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/authorservices.taylorandfrancis.com\/editorial-policies\/defining-authorship-research-paper\/\">combating<\/a>&nbsp;authorship sales by making it harder for mills to add and remove names from papers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Considering the rapid growth in the number of indexed published papers, topping&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.science.org\/content\/article\/scienceadviser-scientists-are-publishing-too-many-papers-and-s-bad-science\">2.8 million<\/a>&nbsp;in 2022, publishers don\u2019t vet every paper for every type of wrongdoing. They tend to find and reject the submissions that are clearly fraudulent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt\u2019s the people who are lazy or not very good at faking it who probably get caught,\u201d the publishing source said. \u201cBut if a paper mill doesn\u2019t put anything in a paper that\u2019s obviously fake and they are not too greedy in terms of numbers of authors, they can definitely get it published.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Byrne agrees that publishers are still routinely fooled by sophisticated fakes. She was recently asked to peer review a cancer paper submitted to a journal at one of the big five publishers. As a leading expert in the field, Byrne found serious flaws in the complicated paper, which wrongly described the behavior of cancel cells. It was a typical paper mill product \u2013 a fancy piece of rubbish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Byrne\u2019s peer review report to the editor was blunt: \u201cThis paper must not be published. It\u2019s absolutely not true,\u201d she said. \u201cBut they didn\u2019t listen to me.\u201d Instead, the editor asked the authors to make revisions on the paper that\u2019s now headed for publication.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cHonestly, this drives me nuts,\u201d Byrne said. \u201cAnd this is happening at scale all around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>This article was originally published by RealClearInvestigations and made available via RealClearWire.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In southern India, a new enterprise called Peer Publicon Consultancy offers a full suite of services to scientific researchers. It will not only write a scholarly paper for a fee but also guarantee publishing the fraudulent work in a respected journal.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":407810,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"Explore how paper mills are infiltrating academia, jeopardizing research integrity and providing fraudulent services to desperate scholars.","jetpack_seo_html_title":"Exposing the Rise of Paper Mills in Academic Publishing","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691838727,691838728,691838726,691828803],"class_list":{"0":"post-407808","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-committee-on-publishing-ethics-cope","9":"tag-fake-research","10":"tag-peer-publicon-consultancy","11":"tag-wiley","13":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/0AQOEhUmD6wjhGGXr_0KFsjw3VVsaiH5ydpoS3VddfqojH_9v52zGbSNsM-9EdDE8igha5rys2AsD_Y0TMo5mLDS0s0KIQqgq3cCymfsDd2HVyk-abWeQDV1hZDUzKMDP-1.png?fit=1440%2C810&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1I5y","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":415493,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=415493","url_meta":{"origin":407808,"position":0},"title":"Peer-Reviewing Peer Review","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"01\/12\/2025","format":false,"excerpt":"We\u2019re told, endlessly, that science is a self-correcting machine. A pristine engine of truth where bad ideas are discarded, and good ones rise to the top like cream. We are told to\u00a0\u201cTrust The Science\u2122\u201c\u00a0because it has passed the magical, mystical trial known as\u00a0Peer Review.","rel":"","context":"In \"\u201csophisticated global networks\u201d\"","block_context":{"text":"\u201csophisticated global networks\u201d","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=sophisticated-global-networks"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/0AQOHQLpQZ-HBGVDRmGb2-fMsaY5QvJYypJZGDrQl7uirwrO89EA237ct6PtPMweZt2iAodbOmI6gfbccHlBmcKvCbUe_4-bKJd-ZM4nbc1yb3BUQeCo9xtKHDsmmqq9X-1.jpeg?fit=1200%2C677&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/0AQOHQLpQZ-HBGVDRmGb2-fMsaY5QvJYypJZGDrQl7uirwrO89EA237ct6PtPMweZt2iAodbOmI6gfbccHlBmcKvCbUe_4-bKJd-ZM4nbc1yb3BUQeCo9xtKHDsmmqq9X-1.jpeg?fit=1200%2C677&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/0AQOHQLpQZ-HBGVDRmGb2-fMsaY5QvJYypJZGDrQl7uirwrO89EA237ct6PtPMweZt2iAodbOmI6gfbccHlBmcKvCbUe_4-bKJd-ZM4nbc1yb3BUQeCo9xtKHDsmmqq9X-1.jpeg?fit=1200%2C677&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/0AQOHQLpQZ-HBGVDRmGb2-fMsaY5QvJYypJZGDrQl7uirwrO89EA237ct6PtPMweZt2iAodbOmI6gfbccHlBmcKvCbUe_4-bKJd-ZM4nbc1yb3BUQeCo9xtKHDsmmqq9X-1.jpeg?fit=1200%2C677&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/0AQOHQLpQZ-HBGVDRmGb2-fMsaY5QvJYypJZGDrQl7uirwrO89EA237ct6PtPMweZt2iAodbOmI6gfbccHlBmcKvCbUe_4-bKJd-ZM4nbc1yb3BUQeCo9xtKHDsmmqq9X-1.jpeg?fit=1200%2C677&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":275901,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=275901","url_meta":{"origin":407808,"position":1},"title":"The Climategate Gang Rides Again!","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"27\/08\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"The \u00a0renewed and reinforced Climategate Gang has risen once more, bullying Springer Nature Publishing into retracting a \u00a0peer-reviewed paper by colluding with the climate crisis news cabal, featuring The\u00a0Guardian, AFP, and the UK\u2019s\u00a0Sky News.","rel":"","context":"In \"Climate change\"","block_context":{"text":"Climate change","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=climate-change"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/0p07gj6xz-1024x576-1.jpg?fit=1024%2C576&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/0p07gj6xz-1024x576-1.jpg?fit=1024%2C576&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/0p07gj6xz-1024x576-1.jpg?fit=1024%2C576&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/0p07gj6xz-1024x576-1.jpg?fit=1024%2C576&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":286214,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=286214","url_meta":{"origin":407808,"position":2},"title":"Mark Lynas \u201899% Consensus\u2019 on Climate Change \u2013 Busted in Peer Review.","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"02\/11\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Greater than 99% consensus on human caused climate change in the peer-reviewed scientific literature? A study which claims over 99% consensus appears to be unsupported by the evidence, because neutral papers were misclassified, and skeptic papers were ignored. From Watts Up With That? From email:My name is Yonatan Dubi, I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"99% Consensus\"","block_context":{"text":"99% Consensus","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=99-consensus"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/OIG.WHu4q98jGip.jpeg?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/OIG.WHu4q98jGip.jpeg?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/OIG.WHu4q98jGip.jpeg?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/OIG.WHu4q98jGip.jpeg?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":303551,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=303551","url_meta":{"origin":407808,"position":3},"title":"Peer review expert journal accidentally publishes fake AI image with gibberish and giant gonads on a rat","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"20\/02\/2024","format":false,"excerpt":"It\u2019s not just that a clever AI image slipped through peer review, it\u2019s that it was garishly fake in a supersize kind of way. Scientifically everything about it was radioactive satire and yet it still got through \u201cpeer review\u201d.\u00a0 The words are gibberish. The editors didn\u2019t even run a spell\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"AI image\"","block_context":{"text":"AI image","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=ai-image"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/0CosmosWeekly-PeerReview_LEAD-1.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/0CosmosWeekly-PeerReview_LEAD-1.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/0CosmosWeekly-PeerReview_LEAD-1.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/0CosmosWeekly-PeerReview_LEAD-1.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/0CosmosWeekly-PeerReview_LEAD-1.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":165510,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=165510","url_meta":{"origin":407808,"position":4},"title":"Activists Get A Recent Paper That Threatens Climate Alarm Narratives Removed From Journal","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"30\/09\/2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Post-publication rejection of peer-reviewed scientific papers precisely because they are \u201care highly controversial due to their political and social implications\u201d are another means climate activists continue their banishment of dissent on climate change. Back in 2009 the\u00a0Climategate e-mails\u00a0provided written documentation affirming suspicions climate scientists inclined to activism seek to \u201coust\u201d\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/0Climategate-e-mails-peer-review-journal-editors-ousted-hide-the-decline-1024x584.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/0Climategate-e-mails-peer-review-journal-editors-ousted-hide-the-decline-1024x584.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/0Climategate-e-mails-peer-review-journal-editors-ousted-hide-the-decline-1024x584.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/0Climategate-e-mails-peer-review-journal-editors-ousted-hide-the-decline-1024x584.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":196226,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=196226","url_meta":{"origin":407808,"position":5},"title":"Peer Review Plus","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"16\/04\/2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach A Modest Proposal\u00a0For Improving Peer Review Abstract. A proposal is made for the design of a specific type of post-publication peer review. Background In 2006, the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine published a widely cited paper (960 citations) by Richard Smith entitled\u00a0\u201cPeer review:\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/00Screenshot-2022-04-16-210813.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/00Screenshot-2022-04-16-210813.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/00Screenshot-2022-04-16-210813.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/00Screenshot-2022-04-16-210813.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/121246920"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=407808"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407808\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":407811,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407808\/revisions\/407811"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/407810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=407808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=407808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=407808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}