Retraction Watch: Suspect Organ Transplant Papers Remain in the Literature

24 October 2025: Retraction Watch has reported on the progress of paper retractions on organ transplantation, based on literature flagged in a 2019 scoping review by Rogers et al.

The scoping review had concluded that 445 Chinese papers reporting research on Chinese transplant recipients failed to comply with international professional and ethical standards in banning publication of research using material from executed prisoners. The review called for retraction of these literature pending investigation of individual papers.

Retraction Watch states that, to date, only 44 of the 445 papers have been retracted in accordance with their count.

The Elsevier journal Clinics and Research in Hepatology and Gastroenterology retracted eight studies of liver transplants earlier this month.

Click HERE to read the full post from Retraction Watch

Excerpts of the post below:

Six years after researchers called for the retraction of more than 400 papers about organ transplantation amid suspicion the organs used in the studies came from executed Chinese prisoners, journals are still working to clear the record.

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At least 17 of the articles marked with expressions of concern in 2019-2020 remain as such.

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As reported by The Guardian in 2019, [the scoping review] exposed “a mass failure of English language medical journals to comply with international ethical standards in place to ensure organ donors provide consent for transplantation.”  Thirteen retractions this year directly cite the Rogers paper.

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A representative from Elsevier confirmed the retractions in CRHG were the result of the organization contacting the journal in August 2023, which was when Elsevier first learned of the issue, the representative said. The “impacted journals promptly initiated an ethics investigation into the relevant publications,” the representative said, but noted “editorial decisions, including whether to retract, are made independently by each journal’s Editor-in-Chief.”

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The rest of the 2025 retractions appear in four journals published by Karger, all of which note none of the authors responded to the journals’ requests for additional information.

“It is deplorable that many journals have not retracted unethical transplant research in which the transplanted organs came from non-consenting prisoners of conscience who were killed in the process,” Rogers told us. “Journals have strict human rights and business obligations, which are breached by publishing research that raises credible concerns about human rights abuses.”

Rogers also said journal editors are in a “strong position to raise the ethical standards of research by refusing to publish papers that raise concerns about human rights abuses, including organ trafficking and forced organ harvesting.”