Retraction policies of top scientific journals ranked by impact factor

[Abstract] Objective This study gathered information about the retraction policies of the top 200 scientific journals, ranked by impact factor. Methods Editors of the top 200 science journals for the year 2012 were contacted by email. Results One hundred forty-seven journals (74%) responded to a request for information. Of these, 95 (65%) had a retraction policy. Of journals with a retraction policy, 94% had a policy that allows the editors to retract articles without authors’ consent. Conclusions The majority of journals in this sample had a retraction policy, and almost all of them would retract an article without the authors’ permission.