The aging scientific workforce collides with rising fabricating citations in medical journals

NewsletterMorning Rounds The aging scientific workforce collides with rising fabricating citations in medical journals The latest in the hantavirus cruise ship saga, why these former officials left the FDA, and more health news from Morning Rounds Manage alerts for this article Email this article Share this article By O. Rose BroderickMay 8, 2026 Disability in Health Care Reporting Fellow O. Rose Broderick[email protected]O. Rose Broderick reports on the health policies and technologies that govern people with disabilities’ lives. Before coming to STAT, she worked at WNYC’s Radiolab and Scientific American, and her story debunking a bogus theory about transgender kids was nominated for a 2024 GLAAD Media Award. You can reach Rose on Signal at rosebroderick.11. Get your daily dose of health and medicine every weekday with STAT’s free newsletter Morning Rounds. Sign up here. The AC broke in STAT’s NYC bureau, so I guess summer has arrived. Happy Friday.Advertisement The latest update in the hantavirus cruise ship saga Buckle up, it’s going to be weeks or even months before the hantavirus outbreak on the cruise ship will be resolved. Here’s the latest update, from STAT’s Helen Branswell. A few nuggets from the World Health Organization’s latest briefing: The MV Hondius is moving to the Canary Islands, WHO officials are working to get people off the ship, and the United States (which famously completed its withdrawal from the international health organization earlier this year) is being cooperative. But for the latest news on the outbreak’s origin, read Helen’s story. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic Ocean, the top U.S. official responsible for public health on cruise ships is stepping down, according to an internal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announcement obtained by STAT’s Daniel Payne.Advertisement Luis Rodríguez had been part of the Vessel Sanitation Program since 2010 and served as its chief since 2023. The sudden retirement comes after a turbulent year for the division in which the program’s full-time employees were laid off. The administration did not respond to questions about Rodríguez’s replacement. Read more from Daniel. The (sorry) state of science STAT’s Anil Oza published two stories yesterday about the state of science, both of them troubling. First, researchers have found a potential culprit for the long decline in discoveries that can push a field dramatically forward: an aging workforce. Most researchers begin their careers conducting their more disruptive work, but as they age they tend to ditch the path-forging work in favor of more familiar work. A new analysis published Thursday in Science reviewed the work of 12.5 million scientists who published at least three papers between 1960 and 2020, and tracked the ways those papers cited previous work and were then cited going forward. As scientists age, they cited older and older work. But a slower pace of discovery is not the only scientific headwind. The rise in AI may be behind a simultaneous boom in fabricated citations found in medical journals, according to a study published Thursday. The new analysis found 4,000 fabricated citations among 2,800 papers — a low number but a figure that is rising rapidly. For the first 7 weeks of 2026, the figure reached one in 277 papers. Read more from Anil. ‘The FDA left me’ If you haven’t read Lizzy Lawrence’s phenomenal piece about what the FDA has lost during the second Trump administration, Alex Hogan devoted his weekly video to the saga. Alex and Lizzy drove around DC and sat down with six former FDA officials to discuss their love for the agency — and why months of turmoil ultimately spurred their exits. Kids in poorer countries are six times more likely to die during emergency surgery The global stratification of health is real: Kids in poorer countries with severe abdominal injuries were six times more likely to die after receiving emergency surgery than their counterparts in richer countries.Advertisement The findings, published Thursday in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, tracked outcomes from 237 pediatric patients who underwent a trauma laparotomy, recruited from 85 hospitals across 32 countries. The majority of patients were male (82.3%) and had sustained a blunt injury (57.0%) like being hit by a car or other forms of violence. Thirty days after the operation, kids’ mortality globally was 8%, but the risk was more acute for patients in lower resource settings. Traffic accidents are a big cause of death and disability worldwide, so while the study’s sample size was small and quite diverse in origin, it is still worrisome. We need more men in nursing The demand for qualified nurses is rising, with nearly 200,000 annual job openings expected due to the mass exodus of nurses reaching retirement age. Who should fill this gap? Men, writes Nicholas A. Giordano, a nurse and assistant professor at Emory University’s Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing in Atlanta. Men currently account for 12% of nurses nationally, even though the profession can often bring stability and median salaries for registered nurses routinely approach six figures. But the proportion of men in the industry has remained stagnant for years. To close the gender gap, Giordano writes, health leaders must expand outreach to men and continue recruiting and positioning more male faculty to teach male students early on in their training. Read more. What we’re reading Trump’s immigration crackdown has harmed scores of kids with tear gas, pepper spray, ProPublica Republicans’ midterm health care dilemma, Axios Employees with medical conditions challenge C.D.C. in-office requirement, New York Times Becerra’s rise baffles his former Biden colleagues, Politico health care Submit a correction requestReprints O. Rose Broderick Disability in Health Care Reporting Fellow O. Rose Broderick reports on the health policies and technologies that govern people with disabilities’ lives. Before coming to STAT, she worked at WNYC’s Radiolab and Scientific American, and her story debunking a bogus theory about transgender kids was nominated for a 2024 GLAAD Media Award. You can reach Rose on Signal at rosebroderick.11. 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