Study: rate of fabricated references in biomedical papers has grown 12x+ since 2023; in early 2026, one in 277 papers had at least one non-existent reference
In 2023, one in 2,828 papers contained at least one fake reference, a rate that had risen to one in 458 by last year. Over the first seven weeks of 2026, the researchers found, one in 277 papers had at least one non-existent reference. https://fortune.com/...