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May 8, 2026

Study Finds Fraudulent Citations Increasingly Common in Medical Research Papers

A new study reveals that fabricated citations that do not reference real academic papers are spreading in medical literature, with researchers attributing the problem partly to AI hallucinations. The trend is polluting the scientific record.

May 8, 2026·3 sources

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Top claims

▪Columbia University researchers concluded that tools using generative AI are likely to blame for the spread of fabricated citations in medical research
▪In 2025, 1 in 458 medical research papers contained one or more fabricated references, representing a sixfold increase in frequency from 2023
▪The New England Journal of Medicine and JAMA have tools to validate citations

Subtopics

AI Hallucination1 AI misinformation & deepfakes1 Drug Approval and Clinical Trials1 Medical research1 Public Health and Safety1

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