2026-04-06

Dead On Arrival

The science you trust might already be dead — we track every retraction so you don't cite a ghost.

Automated tracking, analysis, and plain-English explanation of retracted scientific papers, paper mill fraud, and "zombie papers" that keep getting cited after death

Niche Explored

Scientific paper retractions, research fraud, “zombie papers” (retracted but still cited), paper mills — automated tracking and analysis of retracted scientific literature with plain-English explainers

Existing Competition

Retraction Watch (retractionwatch.com) — The dominant player. Blog-format, 6.6M pageviews/year (2025). Run by Ivan Oransky and Adam Marcus. Substack newsletter “The Retraction Watch Weekly.” ~3 posts/weekday. Focused on investigative journalism style — individual stories. NO automated data analysis, no visualizations, no trend dashboards. Donation-supported via Center For Scientific Integrity nonprofit.
PhDTalks (phdtalks.org) — Occasional retraction analysis posts, like “4,500+ Research Papers Retracted in 2025.” General academic advice site. Low quality data viz.
RetractionDatabase.org — Searchable database, no editorial content or analysis.
RetractBase (retractbase.csic.es) — Spanish CSIC open database of retractions from 2000+. Academic, no editorial voice.
Science.org — Occasional longform on “zombie papers.” Not a niche site.

GAP ANALYSIS

Nobody is doing:

Automated weekly data-driven analysis of retraction trends with rich visualizations
“Zombie paper” tracking — monitoring how retracted papers continue to accumulate citations
Paper mill pattern detection — visual analysis of suspicious journal/author networks
Plain-English explainers — “why should YOU care that this cancer study was faked?”
Impact scoring — which retractions actually affect real people (medical, environmental, policy)?
Beautiful, interactive data visualization — Retraction Watch is text-heavy, no charts

Data Sources Found

Crossref REST API — Free. Contains Retraction Watch data as of Jan 2025. Filter by update-type:retraction. Returns DOI, metadata, dates. Unlimited for polite use (just add email to requests). URL: https://api.crossref.org/works?filter=update-type:retraction
Crossref Labs Retraction Watch CSV — Full dump of Retraction Watch database. Free download via GitLab: https://gitlab.com/crossref/retraction-watch-data. Contains reason codes, countries, subjects.
OpenAlex API — Free, no auth needed. Billions of scholarly works. Filter is_retracted:true. Returns citation counts, topics, institutions, authors. URL: https://api.openalex.org/works?filter=is_retracted:true
PubMed E-Utilities API — Free with API key. Query retracted publications: retracted publication[pt]. Returns abstracts, MeSH terms, author affiliations.
Semantic Scholar API — Free tier (100 req/5min). Citation graphs, paper influence scores. Can track post-retraction citation accumulation.
NCBI PubMed retraction notices — Direct feed of new retraction notices, queryable daily.
Nature Scientific Reports retraction pages — HTML scrape, lists retractions by year. Already shows 38 for 2026 as of early April.

SEO Analysis

Keywords: “retracted papers” (medium volume, low competition), “paper mill science” (growing, low competition), “zombie papers” (trending term, very low competition), “scientific fraud” (high volume, medium competition), “retraction database” (medium volume, low competition)
Long-tail opportunities: “is [specific paper] retracted”, “retracted papers in [field]”, “paper mill journals list”, “how to check if paper is retracted”
Content gap: No site offers visual, data-driven retraction analysis — all existing content is text/blog format
Google Trends: “paper mill” + “retraction” queries have grown significantly since Hindawi/Wiley scandals (2023-2025)

Communities

r/science (31M+ members) — retraction stories regularly get thousands of upvotes
r/labrats, r/AskAcademia, r/GradSchool — active discussion of research integrity
Academic Twitter/X — huge engagement on retraction stories (Ivan Oransky has large following)
PubPeer — post-publication peer review community, active fraud detection
For Better Science (blog by Leonid Schneider) — investigative, European focus
Elisabeth Bik (Twitter) — image forensics expert, massive following

Image/Graphic Feasibility

EXCELLENT for auto-generation:

Network graphs of paper mill author/journal connections (D3.js, force-directed)
Timeline charts of retraction waves by publisher/journal
Heatmaps of retractions by country and field
“Zombie score” gauges showing post-retraction citation accumulation
Sankey diagrams of retraction reasons
Comparison bar charts of journals and publishers
Field/topic treemaps
Citation trajectory line charts (before vs after retraction)

Key Statistics

4,500+ papers retracted in 2025 alone
46,087 total retractions analyzed in recent bibliometric study
Retraction Watch database: 45,000+ entries
Over 50% of retractions from Chinese institutions (Chemistry World, March 2026)
Hindawi alone retracted 8,000+ paper mill articles
Retracted papers continue to be cited for years — “zombie papers” problem is growing
Organized paper mill fraud described as “growing at an alarming rate” (PNAS, 2025)