  In this article, we show the results of a quantitative and qualitative
citation analysis on a popular and highly cited retracted paper:
"Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive
developmental disorder in children" by Wakefield et al., published in 1998. The
main purpose of our study is to understand the behavior of the publications
citing retracted articles and the characteristics of the citations the
retracted articles accumulated over time. Our analysis is based on a
methodology which illustrates how we gathered the data, extracted the topics of
the citing articles, and visualised the results. Such results concerned the
analysis of the entities citing Wakefield et al. and their related in-text
citations. We observed a constant increasing number of citations in the last 20
years, accompanied with a constant increment in the percentage of those
acknowledging its retraction. Citing articles have started discussing/dealing
with the retraction of Wakefield et al. even before its full retraction,
happened in 2010. Social sciences studies were among those that have mostly
discussed the retraction phenomena. In addition, when observing the in-text
citations, we noticed how a large part of the citations received by Wakefield
et al.'s article have been focused on general discussions without recalling
strictly medical details, especially after the full retraction. Medical studies
did not hesitate in acknowledging the retraction and even gave strong negative
statements on it in some occasions.
