In a rush to publish, the coronavirus pandemic has lead to a surge in substandard studies being shared online with fewer quality checks, says a leading medical ethicist in the Journal of Medical Ethics.
Since the appearance on Covid-19, at least 4,000 medical papers about the virus have been published, many of which have later been retracted, withdrawn, or tagged with an 'expression of concern.'
And as of 31 July 2020, 19 published articles and 14 pre-prints about COVID-19 have been retracted, many of them from Asia and more than half from Chinese labs.
'Patient harm that is significant, permanent and irreversible could result from using faulty research results from pre-prints as well as published papers,' wrote Professor Katrina Bramstedt of Bond University.