In February 2022, Retraction Watch wrote about the decision by publisher Wolters Kluwer to retract a table that was missing in a paper in Medicine. In the end the journal pulled the whole article, which described a protocol for a clinical trial, because its authors had “not responded to multiple requests.” The online version of the retracted paper contained links to several related articles, John Loadsman of the University of Sydney discovered.

One common feature was that all of the studies, even retrospective ones, had been registered in a database created by Riaz Agha, a plastic surgeon and publishing entrepreneur in London who is also the editor-in-chief of several Wolters Kluwer titles. Up came 127 publications by researchers in China, including the retracted paper; 117 of those articles had been submitted to the journal in 2020.

In March 2022, Loadsman sent Medicine a spreadsheet listing the suspect articles. The journal, which charges publication fees ranging from US$1,750 to US$2,250, was slow to act. So every six months or so, Loadsman would inquire about the case. Then, in November 2025, the journal issued an expression of concern stating it was investigating the 126 articles.

Source https://retractionwatch.com/2026/02/20/medicine-journal-wolters-kluwer-flags-126-papers-researchregistry-protocol/

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