40.7% of citations to retracted papers still cite them as support.
Out of every 100 citations made after a paper was retracted, 41 cite it as support, 56 mention it in passing, and just 3 flag it as retracted or unreliable.
Out of every 100 citations:
- 41cited it as support40.7% · 21,037 of 51,626
- 56mentioned it in passing55.9% · 28,863 of 51,626
- 3flagged it as retracted or unreliable3.3% · 1,726 of 51,626
Source: SaneCite Phase 2 census: 51,626 citations to 12,328 retracted papers, from open-access papers citing retracted biomedical papers (PubMed-indexed, retracted 1990–2023). 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
| Label | Citations | Share (95% CI, %) |
|---|---|---|
| Cited it as support | 21,037 | 40.7% (39.9–41.5) |
| Mentioned it in passing | 28,863 | 55.9% (55.1–56.8) |
| Flagged it as retracted or unreliable | 1,726 | 3.3% (2.6–4.3) |
| All judged | 51,626 | 100% |
51,626 citations to 12,328 retracted papers, each made in a year after the retraction. Left out: 4,044 citations to paperwork retractions (no fault found in the science) and 18 the three readers could not decide. Not corrected for reader error. Corrected using one AI reader's checks of 150 citations, the estimate is 38.1% (95% CI 33.5–41.8%); the human check will replace that correction. 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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- 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.