Reasons for citing retracted literature are not straightforward, and solutions are complex.

TO THE EDITOR: James M. Hagberg recently described one of the unfortunate consequences of citing retracted literature, namely continued recognition and rewards, through citations, highlighting how literature that was retracted over a decade ago continues to be frequently cited (2). A term was coined for this concept, “citation inflation” (8). Hagberg’s concerns and arguments are valid because they address issues at the heart of the integrity and longevity of the published literature. In theory, a retracted paper should not be cited. Yet, in practice, there are ample pores in the publishing and postpublication dissemination system that allow for retracted papers to be cited, some of which were mentioned by Hagberg, such as insufficiently labeled journal websites, or unclear indexing at PubMed or Web of Science. If a paper has “retracted” stamped across every page, why would academics continue to cite it? One reason not mentioned by Hagberg was that a freely available copy of an unretracted form of a now-retracted paper might exist on sites such as Academia.com or ResearchGate, some as open access (OA), or on the pirate OA site, Sci-Hub, which is widely accessed and used (3, 6, 7). Another aspect that Hagberg alludes to is insufficient appreciation by the wider community of the potential harm caused by citing retracted literature, even more so in the biomedical sciences, which may have a direct impact on human health and public perception. A change in mind-set and citation culture would be required to achieve this, but this process is lengthy. However, this might be related to the negative stigmatization of the current process of retractions, assigning it a punitive image rather than a corrective one (5). Since access to OA or pirated copies might exist for the foreseeable future, one way to address the punitive attitude toward retracted literature is through feelingand tone-neutral corrective measures. These might include adjusting the h-index, citation count or other author-based metrics, or appropriately lowering the citation count of a journal, by adjusting journal-based metrics such as the Journal Impact Factor or CiteScore, with a greater reduction in citations to papers retracted for fraud or misconduct, or a lighter reduction in metrics when literature was retracted due to unintentional error (1). No such practical measures were suggested by Hagberg. Surprisingly, Hagberg did not discuss accountability and transparency, although these issues are implicit when he briefly mentioned the issue of responsibility: “a portion of the responsibility for the unaltered postretraction citation rates for these papers is the failure of PubMed, Web of Science, and journal websites. ” That statement suggests that there is a divided and communal (authors, readers, editors, publishers, funding agencies, indexing agencies, and the public) responsibility in correcting the downstream literature and ensuring its integrity. This is because a retraction represents failure at various levels: shared failure requires shared responsibility to address it (4). Finally, of the 24 citations in Hagberg’s paper, 10 cite the author (subject ETP), eight to retracted papers. Unwittingly, Hagberg has “rewarded” the very papers he precisely does not wish to be cited.