{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,2,17]],"date-time":"2026-02-17T11:22:38Z","timestamp":1771327358492,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":24,"publisher":"Emerald","issue":"4","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2020,10,22]],"date-time":"2020-10-22T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1603324800000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/www.emerald.com\/insight\/site-policies"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["OIR"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2021,8,24]]},"abstract":"<jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-subheading\">Purpose<\/jats:title><jats:p>Thousands of preprints related to Covid-19 have effused into the academic literature. Even though these are not peer-reviewed documents and have not been vetted by medical or other experts, several have been cited, while others have been widely promoted by the media. While many preprints eventually find their way into the published literature, usually through integrated publishing streams, there is a small body of preprints that have been opaquely withdrawn\/retracted, without suitable reasons, leaving only a vestigial or skeletal record online. Others have, quite literally, vanished. This paper aims to examine some of those cases.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-subheading\">Design\/methodology\/approach<\/jats:title><jats:p>For peer-reviewed literature, a retracted academic paper is usually water-marked with \u201cRETRACTED\u201d across each page of the document, as recommended by ethical bodies such as the Committee on Publication Ethics, which represents thousands of journals and publishers. Curiously, even though pro-preprint groups claim that preprints are an integral part of the publication process and a scholarly instrument, there are no strict, detailed or established ethical guidelines for preprints on most preprint servers. This paper identifies select withdrawn\/retracted preprints and emphasizes that the opaque removal of preprints from the scholarly record may constitute unscholarly, possibly even predatory or unethical, behavior.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-subheading\">Findings<\/jats:title><jats:p>Strict ethical guidelines are urgently needed for preprints, and preprint authors, in the case of misconduct, should face the same procedure and consequences as standard peer-reviewed academic literature.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-subheading\">Originality\/value<\/jats:title><jats:p>Journals and publishers that have silently retracted or withdrawn preprints should reinstate them, as for regular retracted literature, except for highly exceptional cases.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.1108\/oir-08-2020-0371","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2020,10,20]],"date-time":"2020-10-20T11:01:17Z","timestamp":1603191677000},"page":"751-757","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":22,"title":["Silently withdrawn or retracted preprints related to Covid-19 are a scholarly threat and a potential public health risk: theoretical arguments and suggested recommendations"],"prefix":"10.1108","volume":"45","author":[{"given":"Jaime A.","family":"Teixeira da Silva","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"140","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2020,10,22]]},"reference":[{"key":"key2021082306311585100_ref301","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"472","DOI":"10.1038\/d41586-019-01566-z","article-title":"How European scientists will spend \u20ac100 billion","volume":"569","year":"2019","journal-title":"Nature"},{"issue":"7811","key":"key2021082306311585100_ref001","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"167","DOI":"10.1038\/d41586-020-01520-4","article-title":"Will the pandemic permanently alter scientific publishing?","volume":"582","year":"2020","journal-title":"Nature"},{"issue":"3","key":"key2021082306311585100_ref002","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"300","DOI":"10.3325\/cmj.2020.61.300","article-title":"\u201cQuestionable\u201d peer review in the publishing pandemic during the time of Covid-19: implications for policy makers and stakeholders","volume":"61","year":"2020","journal-title":"Croatian Medical Journal"},{"key":"key2021082306311585100_ref003","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","volume-title":"Preprinting a Pandemic: The Role of Preprints in the COVID-19 Pandemic","year":"2020","DOI":"10.1101\/2020.05.22.111294"},{"issue":"3","key":"key2021082306311585100_ref004","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1056","DOI":"10.1162\/qss_a_00076","article-title":"Pandemic publishing: medical journals strongly speed up their publication process for Covid-19","volume":"1","year":"2020","journal-title":"Quantitative Science Studies"},{"issue":"7807","key":"key2021082306311585100_ref005","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"130","DOI":"10.1038\/d41586-020-01394-6","article-title":"How swamped preprint servers are blocking bad coronavirus research","volume":"581","year":"2020","journal-title":"Nature"},{"issue":"7807","key":"key2021082306311585100_ref006","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"121","DOI":"10.1038\/d41586-020-01392-8","article-title":"Pandemic researchers - recruit your own best critics","volume":"581","year":"2020","journal-title":"Nature"},{"issue":"7670","key":"key2021082306311585100_ref007","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"23","DOI":"10.1038\/549023a","article-title":"Stop this waste of people, animals and money","volume":"549","year":"2017","journal-title":"Nature"},{"issue":"4","key":"key2021082306311585100_ref008","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"418","DOI":"10.1017\/cem.2020.361","article-title":"The Twitter pandemic: the critical role of Twitter in the dissemination of medical information and misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic","volume":"22","year":"2020","journal-title":"Canadian Journal of Emergency Medicine"},{"issue":"1","key":"key2021082306311585100_ref009","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"23","DOI":"10.1186\/s12941-020-00368-w","article-title":"Ivermectin, a new candidate therapeutic against SARS-CoV-2\/COVID-19","volume":"19","year":"2020","journal-title":"Annals of Clinical Microbiology and Antimicrobials"},{"issue":"7715","key":"key2021082306311585100_ref010","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"445","DOI":"10.1038\/d41586-018-05789-4","article-title":"Preprints could promote confusion and distortion","volume":"559","year":"2018","journal-title":"Nature"},{"issue":"1","key":"key2021082306311585100_ref013","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"44","DOI":"10.1007\/s12109-015-9439-y","article-title":"Silent or stealth retractions, the dangerous voices of the unknown, deleted literature","volume":"32","year":"2016","journal-title":"Publishing Research Quarterly"},{"issue":"3","key":"key2021082306311585100_ref014","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"220","DOI":"10.1007\/s12109-016-9469-0","article-title":"An error is an error\u2026 is an erratum. The ethics of not correcting errors in the science literature","volume":"32","year":"2016","journal-title":"Publishing Research Quarterly"},{"issue":"4","key":"key2021082306311585100_ref015","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"610","DOI":"10.3329\/bjms.v16i4.33623","article-title":"Ethical exceptionalism: can publishing rules be manipulated to give the impression of ethical publishing?","volume":"16","year":"2017","journal-title":"Bangladesh Journal of Medical Science"},{"issue":"2","key":"key2021082306311585100_ref016","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"162","DOI":"10.1016\/j.mjafi.2017.08.002","article-title":"The preprint debate: what are the issues?","volume":"74","year":"2018","journal-title":"Medical Journal Armed Forces India"},{"issue":"5","key":"key2021082306311585100_ref017","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"102187","DOI":"10.1016\/j.acalib.2020.102187","article-title":"An alert to COVID-19 literature in predatory publishing venues","volume":"46","year":"2020","journal-title":"The Journal of Academic Librarianship"},{"issue":"9","key":"key2021082306311585100_ref018","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"2186","DOI":"10.1097\/CORR.0000000000001384","article-title":"Letter to the Editor: benefits and risks of medical preprints in the COVID-19 era, and beyond","volume":"478","year":"2020","journal-title":"Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research\u00ae"},{"issue":"1","key":"key2021082306311585100_ref019","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"3","DOI":"10.1152\/japplphysiol.00258.2020","article-title":"Reasons for citing retracted literature are not straightforward, and solutions are complex","volume":"129","year":"2020","journal-title":"Journal of Applied Physiology"},{"issue":"1","key":"key2021082306311585100_ref020","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"101","DOI":"10.1007\/s12109-016-9489-9","article-title":"Excessively long editorial decisions and excessively long publication times by journals: causes, risks, consequences, and proposed solutions","volume":"33","year":"2017","journal-title":"Publishing Research Quarterly"},{"issue":"2","key":"key2021082306311585100_ref021","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"521","DOI":"10.1007\/s11948-016-9769-y","article-title":"Notices and policies for retractions, expressions of concern, errata and corrigenda: their importance, content, and context","volume":"23","year":"2017","journal-title":"Science and Engineering Ethics"},{"issue":"2","key":"key2021082306311585100_ref022","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"162","DOI":"10.1016\/j.acalib.2019.02.009","article-title":"Preprint policies among 14 academic publishers","volume":"45","year":"2019","journal-title":"The Journal of Academic Librarianship"},{"issue":"6","key":"key2021082306311585100_ref011","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.acalib.2019.102071","article-title":"Predatory and exploitative behaviour in academic publishing: an assessment","volume":"45","year":"2019","journal-title":"The Journal of Academic Librarianship"},{"key":"key2021082306311585100_ref012","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/s11192-020-03675-3","article-title":"Publishing volumes in major databases related to Covid-19","year":"2020","journal-title":"Scientometrics"},{"issue":"2","key":"key2021082306311585100_ref023","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"225","DOI":"10.1007\/s11077-020-09381-4","article-title":"COVID-19 and the policy sciences: initial reactions and perspectives","volume":"53","year":"2020","journal-title":"Policy Sciences"}],"container-title":["Online Information Review"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.emerald.com\/insight\/content\/doi\/10.1108\/OIR-08-2020-0371\/full\/xml","content-type":"application\/xml","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"https:\/\/www.emerald.com\/insight\/content\/doi\/10.1108\/OIR-08-2020-0371\/full\/html","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,7,24]],"date-time":"2025-07-24T22:43:41Z","timestamp":1753397021000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"http:\/\/www.emerald.com\/oir\/article\/45\/4\/751-757\/323711"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2020,10,22]]},"references-count":24,"journal-issue":{"issue":"4","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2020,10,22]]},"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2021,8,24]]}},"alternative-id":["10.1108\/OIR-08-2020-0371"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1108\/oir-08-2020-0371","relation":{},"ISSN":["1468-4527"],"issn-type":[{"value":"1468-4527","type":"print"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2020,10,22]]}}}