Retraction Watch reveals a WhatsApp-based research network of nearly 1,000 members orchestrated by a second-year medical student in Nepal, mass-producing systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and conference abstracts with authorship as a commodity. While not strictly an AI story, paper mills of this nature increasingly leverage AI tools to accelerate production. The story is directly relevant to the scholarly publishing integrity crisis — a core topic for p2preview — and illustrates the expanding global infrastructure of fraudulent research output.

Source: Retraction Watch