31% to 43% of citations still cite retracted papers as support, in every subject.
From biology and medicine to the physical and social sciences, business and the humanities. Only 1.7% to 4.1% flag the paper as retracted or unreliable.
Cited it as support, by subject of the retracted paper
A paper can have more than one subject; its citations count under each. Humanities rests on 194 citations, so it is the least certain.
The registered grouping: each paper sorted by its whole set of subject codes
Source: SaneCite Phase 2 census: 51,626 citations from open-access papers citing retracted biomedical papers (PubMed-indexed, retracted 1990–2023). Subjects as listed by Retraction Watch; the subject breakdown is a later check, not in the registered plan. Dot = estimate; line = 95% CI. Provisional: read by three AI models; a human check comes next. Data as of 14 Oct 2026.
Source: SaneCite Phase 2 census, 51,626 citations, data as of 14 Oct 2026 · sanecite.com/charts
Show the numbers
By subject (a later check, not in the registered plan). A paper with several subjects counts under each, so the groups overlap.
| Group | Citations | Cited it as support (95% CI, %) | Flagged it (95% CI, %) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic life sciences | 37,031 | 42.5% (41.6–43.4) | 2.9% (2.2–3.9) |
| Health sciences | 30,858 | 39.3% (38.2–40.3) | 4.0% (2.9–5.6) |
| Social sciences | 1,910 | 36.0% (33.1–39.0) | 4.1% (2.5–6.7) |
| Humanities | 194 | 35.1% (22.6–45.8) | 3.6% (0.4–8.2) |
| Environment | 907 | 34.1% (28.3–40.0) | 3.6% (0.8–7.8) |
| Physical sciences | 2,391 | 32.2% (29.2–35.2) | 3.2% (1.9–5.1) |
| Business and technology | 1,858 | 31.4% (28.7–34.2) | 1.7% (1.0–2.6) |
The registered grouping sorts each paper by its whole set of Retraction Watch subject codes: basic life sciences (BLS) only, health sciences (HSC) only, both, or a set that includes any other subject (such as chemistry or psychology, often alongside BLS or HSC).
| Group | Citations | Cited it as support (95% CI, %) | Flagged it (95% CI, %) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic life sciences only | 18,384 | 44.4% (42.9–45.6) | 2.1% (1.6–2.8) |
| Both basic life and health sciences | 16,730 | 41.3% (39.7–42.8) | 3.6% (2.2–6.1) |
| Health sciences only | 11,433 | 37.2% (35.6–38.9) | 4.9% (3.4–7.0) |
| Includes another subject | 4,997 | 34.0% (31.8–35.9) | 3.7% (2.6–5.0) |
| Business and technology only (not grouped) | 82 | 20.7% (9.8–31.9) | 0 of 82 |
The registered rule's code pattern skipped the business and technology code (B/T), so 82 citations to papers coded only B/T are left out of its groups; they are in the table, not drawn, and counted in the subject breakdown. 95% confidence intervals (the likely range) come from re-running the numbers 400 times, drawing whole retracted papers at random (a cluster bootstrap).
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Download the image, paste the caption, or link to this page. Please credit SaneCite (sanecite.com). The numbers come from the open census data; nothing here is picked by hand.
- Provisional.Three AI models read every citing passage. On a blind sample of 150 citations they agreed with a separate AI reader on whether each cited the paper as support in 142 (94.7%); a check by two human labellers comes next, and the figures may move. The rates are not corrected for reader error: corrected using that one AI reader's checks, the 40.7% headline estimate would be about 38.1% (95% CI 33.5–41.8%).
- What a citation is here.One later paper citing one retracted paper, in a year after the retraction. Citations to paperwork retractions, which find no fault in the science, are reported apart.
- What it covers.Open-access papers in Europe PMC citing PubMed-indexed papers retracted from 1990 to 2023. About 43% of all later citations could be read.
- Check it yourself.This chart's data · every citation, searchable · method and limits · code.