Elsevier has retracted more than 120 articles from special issues of the International Journal of Biological Macromolecules (IJBM) since June 2026, and the number is still rising. The retraction notices cite "systematic, coordinated, and widespread manipulation of the peer-review process" — language that points squarely at guest-edited special issues as the mechanism, not ordinary editorial error. Retraction Watch first reported the scale of the retraction wave on August 12, 2026.
What happened
According to Retraction Watch’s reporting, Elsevier began retracting affected papers from IJBM in June 2026, working through articles published across the journal’s special issues in 2024 and 2025. An Elsevier spokesperson told Retraction Watch the publisher "became aware of possible systematic manipulation and other issues such as plagiarism, image duplication, and authorship issues" in 2025, and that the resulting retractions "are now almost complete," with "Guest Editor checks… further tightened" going forward. Retraction Watch’s reporting does not identify a specific individual editor, reviewer ring, or the precise technical method used to compromise the review process for these issues — only that the retraction notices themselves describe the manipulation as systematic and coordinated across the affected special issues, rather than isolated to single papers.
This is not CASRAI confirming or characterizing the specific mechanism beyond what the retraction notices and Elsevier’s statement say publicly — the point of this piece is what the pattern means structurally for authors and research offices, not to speculate about names or techniques the source reporting does not provide.
Why special issues are the recurring point of failure
IJBM is the latest large-scale case in a pattern publishers have been fighting for several years: guest-edited special issues are structurally easier to manipulate than a journal’s regular editorial pipeline. A guest editor is typically an outside researcher recruited for a single themed issue rather than a permanent, previously-vetted member of the editorial board, but is granted the same operational authority — soliciting manuscripts, assigning reviewers, and recommending accept/reject decisions — for the duration of that issue. Where a publisher’s guest-editor vetting is thin, that authority becomes an attack surface: a compromised or complicit guest editor can wave through manuscripts from an affiliated network, assign reviews to accomplices or fabricated reviewer identities, or simply skip substantive review altogether while the article still carries the appearance of having been peer reviewed.
COPE and STM’s joint 2022 report, Paper Mills, documented this shift explicitly: industrial-scale manuscript-production operations increasingly target guest-edited special issues and open-call CFPs precisely because editorial oversight there is inconsistent across publishers and journals. The cross-industry United2Act initiative, launched in 2023, exists specifically to coordinate a shared publisher/integrity-officer/sleuth response to this class of problem. See CASRAI’s paper mill and peer review fraud entries for the underlying mechanics and detection signals — sudden submission spikes from the same institution or network, recycled figures across ostensibly unrelated papers, and citation patterns that recur across venues.
IJBM follows a well-known earlier case at industry scale: in 2023, Wiley discontinued its Hindawi journal brand entirely after retracting thousands of articles tied to compromised guest-edited special issues, following a similar pattern of coordinated peer-review manipulation across special-issue pipelines. Special-issue integrity has since become a standing concern across STM publishing, not a one-off failure at any single title.
Red flags for authors evaluating where to submit
- An unusually fast turnaround for a special issue call. Legitimate peer review takes time; a special issue promising acceptance in weeks, especially alongside an open, unscreened call for papers, is a signal worth treating with suspicion.
- A guest editor with no clear standing in the specific sub-field of the special issue, or an editorial board with no visible role in vetting who was invited to guest-edit.
- Special issues with an unusually high volume of accepted papers relative to the journal’s normal issues, or clusters of co-authorship and cross-citation among the special issue’s contributors.
- Review reports that are vague, generic, or arrive with implausible speed given the manuscript’s length and technical content.
- A journal or special issue with a recent, unexplained retraction history — checking a journal’s or issue’s retraction record before submitting is now a reasonable, low-cost due-diligence step, not overcaution.
None of these signals is proof of manipulation on its own, and none of them applies to the large majority of legitimate guest-edited special issues, which remain a normal and useful publishing format. They are indicators worth weighing together, the same way a research integrity office would weigh them when assessing a journal or venue.
What this means for research administration and integrity offices
A retraction wave of this size touching a widely-indexed Elsevier journal has practical downstream effects for institutions, independent of whether any of their own researchers are directly implicated:
- CV and publication-list verification. Faculty review, promotion, tenure, and grant-application committees checking a candidate’s publication record should treat a retraction at IJBM’s affected special issues the same as any other retraction — verify current status directly against the publisher’s retraction notice or a retraction database rather than trusting an unrevised CV entry or citation manager record, which can lag a retraction by months.
- Co-authorship exposure. A researcher can be a co-author on a retracted special-issue paper without having participated in the manipulation itself — guest-editor and reviewer-level fraud does not require every listed author’s knowledge or involvement. Institutions handling an inquiry involving one of these retractions should distinguish authorship from editorial misconduct before drawing conclusions.
- Editorial-role disclosure. If researchers at your institution serve or have served as guest editors for special issues elsewhere, this is a reasonable moment to confirm your own conflict-of-interest and editorial-independence disclosure practices cover that role explicitly, not just standard authorship COI.
- Retraction communication and downstream indexing. NISO’s CREC (Communication of Retractions, Removals, and Expressions of Concern) Recommended Practice exists precisely because retraction notices have historically propagated inconsistently to indexes, citation managers, and downstream readers. A large, ongoing retraction wave is a useful real-world test of whether your institution’s own literature-monitoring workflow actually picks up CREC-compliant retraction signals in a timely way.
The broader pattern
IJBM’s retraction wave is a large, concrete instance of a problem the scholarly publishing sector has been visibly working through since at least 2023: special issues and open-call thematic collections, valuable as they are for fast-moving or interdisciplinary work, have become the preferred entry point for paper mills and peer-review manipulation precisely because editorial control over them is often looser and less standardized than a journal’s core pipeline. Publishers’ responses — Elsevier’s tightened guest-editor checks cited in its statement to Retraction Watch, Wiley’s 2023 discontinuation of the Hindawi brand, and cross-industry coordination through COPE, STM, and United2Act — are converging on the same conclusion: guest-editor vetting, reviewer identity verification, and post-publication monitoring need to be treated as standard editorial infrastructure for special issues, not optional extras layered on only after a scandal.
For research offices and authors alike, the practical takeaway is the same one that follows every major retraction wave: verify status at the source rather than relying on a static publication list, and treat a journal’s or special issue’s track record as part of normal due diligence when deciding where to submit, review, or cite.
Frequently asked questions
How many papers has Elsevier retracted from the International Journal of Biological Macromolecules?
More than 120 as of Retraction Watch’s August 12, 2026 report, with Elsevier indicating the process is nearing completion but additional retractions still possible. Check the journal’s own retraction notices or a retraction database for the current, up-to-date count rather than relying on any single point-in-time figure.
What is “special issue” peer-review manipulation?
It refers to abuse of the guest-editor model used for themed special issues, where an outside guest editor is granted temporary authority to solicit manuscripts and assign peer reviewers. When that role is compromised, poorly vetted, or complicit, it can be used to push papers through with fabricated, affiliated, or effectively absent peer review while the article still carries the appearance of having been reviewed.
Does a retraction automatically mean an author committed misconduct?
No. Peer-review manipulation typically operates at the level of the guest editor or the review assignment process, not necessarily with every co-author’s knowledge. Retraction notices should be read for their stated reason, and institutions should distinguish authorship from editorial-level misconduct before concluding an individual author acted improperly.
How can authors check whether a special issue is legitimate before submitting?
Look at the guest editor’s standing in the specific sub-field, whether the editorial board discloses how guest editors are vetted, the issue’s turnaround time relative to the journal’s normal review process, and the journal or issue’s recent retraction history. See the red-flags list above for the fuller checklist.
This article is based on Retraction Watch’s August 12, 2026 reporting and Elsevier’s public statement to that outlet. CASRAI has not independently verified the identity of any individual guest editor, reviewer, or author involved and makes no claim beyond what the cited retraction notices and publisher statement say.
