Between January and February 2026, ASTM International’s Journal of Testing and Evaluation (JTE) retracted at least 166 articles — described by Retraction Watch as “nearly 170” — after an ASTM vendor flagged irregular patterns in the peer review of a special issue. The case is notable less for its size, which is large but not unprecedented for a compromised special-issue cluster, than for its publisher: ASTM International is a technical-standards-development organization, not a conventional commercial or society STM publisher, and JTE is a peer-reviewed engineering-testing journal operating inside that standards-body context. This is a distinct paper mill vector from the mega-publisher and predatory-open-access cases that dominate most research-integrity coverage.
What happened
According to Retraction Watch’s reporting, ASTM opened an investigation after a vendor working with the journal noticed irregular review patterns tied to a special issue. The investigation ultimately found that the peer-review process behind four guest-edited special issues or sections had been compromised, and JTE retracted articles in staged batches as the review progressed:
- 48 articles — “Special Issue on Testing and Evaluation of Internet of Things for Smart City”
- 43 articles — “Special Issue on Advanced Internet of Things for Smart City (Part 2)”
- 31 articles — a special section on cognitive computing in healthcare
- 25 articles — a special section on advanced intelligence in information science and communication systems
- 19 articles — a 2021 special section on human-centered artificial intelligence, which Retraction Watch reports was guest-edited by Ranganathan Mohanasundaram of Vellore Institute of Technology
That totals 166 retractions across the five batches; Retraction Watch’s own headline framing (“nears 170”) suggests the final count may run slightly higher once every notice is indexed. CASRAI has not independently re-tallied the underlying retraction notices and this figure should be read as approximate pending a full audit of ASTM’s published retraction list.
Why the special-issue / guest-editor pattern matters
Every one of the compromised clusters was a guest-edited special issue or special section — the same structural weak point identified in a broader STAT investigation into guest-edited special issues driving journal retractions across the industry. Special issues concentrate review workload on a small number of externally-appointed guest editors, often on a compressed timeline and with less standing editorial oversight than the journal’s regular workflow — exactly the conditions paper-mill operators have learned to target. The IoT-for-smart-cities and AI-themed special issues in the JTE case also sit somewhat outside ASTM’s core testing-and-materials remit, a topical mismatch that is itself a known red flag: a technical-standards journal absorbing large volumes of computer-science-adjacent submissions through a guest-edited channel is a pattern worth independent scrutiny in its own right.
A technical-standards-body journal is a distinct case type
Most paper-mill retraction stories involve either large commercial/OA publishers or journals already flagged as predatory. ASTM International is neither — it is a long-established standards-development organization whose technical committees produce the consensus standards used across manufacturing, materials testing, and construction, and which also operates a portfolio of peer-reviewed technical journals, of which JTE is one. That combination matters for two reasons. First, a standards body’s authority rests on its consensus process being trustworthy; a compromised journal under the same brand is a different kind of reputational exposure than a compromised journal at a pure publishing house. Second, it demonstrates that guest-edited special-issue manipulation is not confined to mega-journals or discipline-agnostic OA publishers — it can reach a narrower, engineering-and-materials-testing venue with a comparatively small annual output (JTE typically publishes on the order of 200-300 articles a year, meaning these retractions represent a meaningful share of several recent volume-years, not a rounding error).
ASTM’s response
Per Retraction Watch’s coverage, ASTM has since introduced several safeguards specific to this failure mode: enhanced vetting and oversight of guest editors before a special issue is approved, tighter controls on reviewer assignment and identity verification, expanded use of technology-assisted screening to detect irregular review patterns (timing anomalies, reviewer/author overlap, citation-stuffing), and ongoing monitoring of editorial workflows after publication rather than only at submission. This mirrors the direction of travel across the industry — see CASRAI’s coverage of the STM Integrity Hub, the cross-publisher screening consortium, and United2Act, the coalition coordinating publishers’ collective response to paper mills.
How this compares to other recent paper-mill cases
CASRAI has covered several other paper-mill and compromised-peer-review cases; each illustrates a different vector, and the JTE case adds a fourth:
- Frontiers — a large, discipline-broad OA publisher using a collaborative, cross-reviewer editorial model, scrutinized over review-speed and editor-independence concerns.
- RV University / Telegram authorship-slot sales — a case involving a stolen study and paid authorship slots sold through an informal broker channel, illustrating the authorship-for-sale side of the paper-mill economy.
- Walsh Medical Media — a smaller, discipline-specific publisher accused of demanding payment to retract a paper falsely attributed to an impersonated author, illustrating predatory-adjacent retraction-extortion behavior.
- ASTM’s Journal of Testing and Evaluation (this case) — a technical-standards-body journal compromised specifically through guest-edited special issues, showing the vector reaches beyond conventional STM/OA publishing into standards-development organizations that also run peer-reviewed journals.
Together these cases underline that paper-mill exposure is not a function of publisher size or business model alone — it tracks wherever editorial control over a review process, especially a guest-edited or special-issue process, is delegated without sufficient standing oversight.
What this means for authorship and research-integrity review
For CRediT-adopting journals, research-integrity offices, and authors listed on retracted special-issue papers, the JTE case is a reminder that authorship accountability and peer-review integrity are linked but separate failure points. A compromised review process does not, on its own, establish that every listed author participated in the manipulation — some retracted authors may have submitted legitimate work into a special issue whose review process was later found compromised. Journals and institutions handling a mass retraction of this kind should distinguish, in each retraction notice, whether the concern is peer-review integrity, authorship/data fabrication, or both; CASRAI’s CRediT taxonomy overview and guide on writing a retraction statement cover how to state that distinction precisely rather than let a blanket “compromised peer review” notice imply misconduct by every listed author.
Frequently asked questions
How many papers did ASTM’s Journal of Testing and Evaluation retract?
At least 166 articles across five batches tied to four compromised special issues/sections, per Retraction Watch’s reporting between January and February 2026 — described in that reporting as “nearly 170.” CASRAI has not independently re-verified the exact final count against ASTM’s own retraction notices.
What triggered the investigation?
An ASTM vendor identified irregular patterns in the peer review of a special issue, prompting ASTM to investigate more broadly across the journal’s guest-edited special issues and sections.
Is this the same kind of paper mill as the mega-publisher cases?
No. The affected content was concentrated in guest-edited special issues, which is a documented industry-wide vector (see CASRAI’s coverage of the STAT investigation into guest-edited special issues) rather than the broad-based submission-pipeline manipulation seen at some large OA publishers. What is distinct about this case is the publisher type: a technical-standards-development body running a peer-reviewed engineering journal, not a dedicated STM or OA publishing house.
