Retracted randomized trials from super-retractors and top-cited scientists with multiple retractions

Importance: Multiple retractions from the same author often uncover issues affecting their entire work, such as having systematically altered or fabricated data. Objectives: Evaluate the contribution of authors with most retractions (super-retractors) and top-cited scientists with multiple retractions to the retracted clinical trial literature. Design: Retrospective cohort study, linking an openly available cohort (VITALITY) of 1330 retracted randomized clinical trials (RCTs) to three lists of scientists: super-retractors, totaling most retractions in the Retraction Watch Leaderboard, and top-cited scientists, over the entire career or in the most recent single year, who accumulated 10 or more retractions not due to editor/publisher errors. The VITALITY cohort was updated up to November 2024. The three author lists were updated in August 2025. Participants: 30 super-retractors, 163 career-long and 174 single-year scientists totaling 10 or more retractions. Main outcomes: Authorship and characteristics of retracted RCTs (publication and retraction year, time between publication and retraction, number of citations). Results: 6/30 super-retractors, representing Anesthesiology and Endocrinology & Metabolism, co-authored 290/1330 retracted RCTs (22%). 18/163 career-long top-cited scientists with at least 10 retractions, representing 10 fields, co-authored 327/1330 trials (25%), 275 (84%) of which were also co-authored by a super-retractor. 7/174 single-year top-cited scientists with at least 10 retractions co-authored 50 retracted trials; all of them were also among the career-long top-cited scientists with at least 10 retractions. Articles with super-retractors authors vs not were published earlier (median (IQR)= 2000 (1997-2005) vs 2020 (2014-2022)); retracted earlier (median (IQR)= 2013 (2012-2019) vs 2023 (2018.5-2023)); had a longer lag between publication and retraction, (median (IQR)= 5111 (3560-6820) vs 482 (330-1119) days); and accrued more citations (median (IQR)= 21 (12-42) vs 5 (1-19)). In multivariable regression models, only time to retraction (β = 0.02, P < 0.001) was significantly and positively associated with total citations. Results were similar when comparing retracted articles from top-cited scientists with at least 10 retractions versus other articles. Conclusions and relevance: In this cohort study of 1330 retracted RCTs, a small number of influential authors, often co-authors and concentrated across few fields of medicine and countries, account for a significant proportion of retracted clinical trials.