The publisher started an investigation into the European Journal of Inflammation "after we noticed signs of papermill activity in one of the articles," Laura West, a corporate communications and public affairs manager at Sage, told. The investigation found the papers "contain indicators of third-party involvement," according to the retraction notice, published August 5, 2025.

According to the earliest snapshot of the journal’s manuscript guidelines page on the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, the article processing charge in April 2020 was $2,000, meaning Sage took in as much as $96,000 from the publication of these now-retracted articles.

Another Sage journal, the Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, retracted more than 1,500 papers for signs of paper mill activity, with the final two batches retracted in January and April earlier this year. The publisher also issued 116 expressions of concern for articles in The American Surgeon for "concerning author activity."

Source https://retractionwatch.com/2025/08/14/sage-journal-retracts-48-papers-paper-mill-activity/

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