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Researchers identified 131 scientific articles that had been changed after publication without a correction notice or another visible indication of the change. The cases show how readers can lose the public record of what changed—but they do not measure how common the practice is across scientific publishing or prove that every change was intended to mislead.
What is a stealth correction?
A stealth correction is a change made to a scientific article after publication without a correction note or other visible indication that the article was altered. René Aquarius and coauthors use this definition in their 2025 paper: “at least one post-publication change made to a scientific article, without providing a correction note or any other indicator that the publication was temporarily or permanently altered.”
The term covers more than edits to scientific findings. The study’s categories include changes to article content, the editorial-process record, author information, and additional statements such as ethics, conflicts of interest, or funding. A silent change is not automatically evidence of misconduct: its significance and intent depend on the specific case.
What did researchers find?
Aquarius, Schoeters, Wise, Glynn, and Cabanac documented 131 articles with stealth corrections in a 2025 opinion article in Learned Publishing. Their list is a collection of identified cases, not a census of journals or an estimate of the proportion of all published papers affected.
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| Category or later outcome | Count reported in the case list |
|---|---|
| Changes to article content | 92 |
| Changes to the editorial-process record | 27 |
| Changes to author information | 9 |
| Changes to additional information, such as ethics or funding statements | 3 |
| Articles that later received an official correction notice | 5 |
| Articles reverted to their original version | 17 |
| Articles that received an expression of concern | 9 |
| Articles later retracted | 11 |
| Book chapters removed | 7 |
These figures are counts from the authors’ assembled cases, not rates. The later notices, reverts, expressions of concern, retractions, and chapter removals do not by themselves establish why an earlier silent change was made or that it caused the later outcome. The study describes the cases and its limitations.
How did the authors identify the cases?
The authors used a pragmatic search for examples rather than a method designed to count every instance. They collected cases already known to them, explored science-sleuth social media accounts, contacted sleuths, and searched PubPeer using terms including “no erratum,” “no corrigendum,” and “stealth.” They set no specific limits on publication period, journal, or publisher.
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Because unannounced changes are difficult to find systematically, the authors say their list is not comprehensive. It cannot establish how often stealth corrections occur across science, whether they are becoming more frequent, or what share of journals or publishers are involved.
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Why does a silent change matter to readers?
A correction notice leaves a public trail: readers can see that a change occurred and, ideally, what was changed and why. Without that record, someone reading the current article may not know that an earlier version differed. That can complicate evaluation of the paper and make it harder for later readers to understand its publication history.
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The study’s authors argue that silent updates can raise questions about the integrity of journals, editors, and publishers. They warn that, in serious cases, an unlogged change could mask a problem that merits a formal retraction. Those are concerns about the risks of the practice, not proof that every silent edit concealed a serious flaw. The authors’ summary states: “Stealth corrections must end immediately as they threaten scientific integrity.”
How is a stealth correction different from a published correction?
A published correction makes the change part of the visible record, typically through a notice associated with the article. A stealth correction, by definition, lacks that notice or another indicator that the article changed. The distinction is transparency: a reader should be able to identify that a change happened, even when the change itself is minor.
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The study notes that existing guidance addresses some situations, including plagiarism, author removal, and inappropriate image manipulation. It also says guidance does not provide specific flowcharts for every kind of change discussed, including some changes to affiliations, consent or ethics statements, handling editors, or journal-issue allocation.
Can readers tell whether a paper has changed?
Not always. A visible correction notice or version history can signal an update, but the cases discussed by Aquarius and coauthors are specifically those without such an indication at the time identified. Readers can check the journal’s article page for linked notices, publication-history details, or available earlier versions. The absence of a notice is not proof that a paper was changed; it means readers may not have a complete change history from the article page alone.
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A separate 2025 example involving an image
A separate PLOS Biology study about image-related problems in animal studies of subarachnoid hemorrhage reported that one image among 46 resulting corrections was initially replaced without a correction notice. The researchers alerted the publisher, and a notice was added months later. This is a distinct example of an initially unacknowledged change, not a replication of the 131-case study or evidence of the overall prevalence of stealth corrections. The PLOS Biology paper describes that work.
What should journals do when an article needs updating?
Aquarius and coauthors favor publicly logging changes and providing clearer, more uniform guidance. For readers, the most useful record would make the update easy to discover and answer several questions:
- What changed, and where in the article?
- When was the change made, and why?
- Can readers access or identify the prior version?
- Does the policy cover both scientific content and administrative records?
- Can readers and indexing services find the notice from the article record?
These practices help distinguish a transparent correction from an unexplained alteration and preserve a usable history of the publication.
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