Video: Fabricated References, a Playbook for Editors-in-Chief

Brieflands has released a new training video for editors-in-chief on fabricated references: citations with plausible authors, years and journals that point to publications that do not exist.

Watch on YouTube: youtu.be/VfOCzlO0bJ0

New evidence

• An audit in The Lancet of about 2.5 million biomedical papers in PubMed Central found that papers with at least one fabricated reference rose from 1 in 2,828 in 2023 to 1 in 458 in 2025, and to 1 in 277 in the first seven weeks of 2026 [1].
• According to the same study, more than 98% of these papers had received no correction, expression of concern or retraction [1].
• In 4,841 papers accepted at NeurIPS 2025, 100 fabricated citations were confirmed in more than 50 papers, all of which had passed peer review [2].

Three real cases

• Intensive Care Medicine: 10 of the 15 references in a letter to the editor could not be found, including one to a non-existent paper in the same journal. The letter was retracted in November 2025 [3].
• A Springer Nature book: the publisher could not verify the source of 25 of the 46 references in Mastering Machine Learning, and the book was retracted [4].
• Journal of Medical Ethics: non-existent references, together with evidence of peer-review manipulation, led to retraction [5].

A four-step workflow for your journal

1. At submission: match every reference automatically against its DOI, PubMed ID or Crossref record; list unfound references and every citation to your own journal separately.
2. In peer review: check the key references. Does the source exist, and does it say what the paper claims?
3. When a source cannot be found: ask the authors for the DOI, a link or the first page first. A failed search alone does not prove fabrication. Unresolved cases are handled under the journal's policy and COPE guidance, and documented.
4. After publication: match the notice to the problem: correction, expression of concern, or retraction under the COPE retraction guidelines [6].

References

1. Topaz M, Roguin N, Gupta P, Zhang Z, Peltonen LM. Fabricated citations: an audit across 2.5 million biomedical papers. Lancet. 2026;407(10541):1779-81. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(26)00603-3
2. GPTZero. GPTZero finds 100 new hallucinations in NeurIPS 2025 accepted papers. January 2026. gptzero.me/news/neurips
3. Retraction Watch. Medical journal publishes a letter with a fake reference to itself. 28 January 2026. retractionwatch.com
4. Retraction Watch. Springer Nature retracts book with fake citations. 4 August 2025. retractionwatch.com
5. Journal of Medical Ethics. Retraction notice. 2026. doi:10.1136/jme-2025-110913
6. Committee on Publication Ethics. Retraction guidelines. publicationethics.org

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