Researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) say commercial software sold by companies in the Guangzhou region of China can produce publishable papers from public health data in under two hours. The team, including statistician Andrea Riebler, Leonhard Held and Peter Methys Degen, published the findings in the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology. They found two further similar packages on the market.
The investigation began when citations of Riebler's 2017 cancer-forecasting paper jumped from 70 in 2024 to more than 250 the following year. The team examined more than 700 papers built on the Global Burden of Disease database and found that about 99% shared no source code. The journal Accountability in Research reported a 60% rise in submissions in 2026.
The authors warn that mass-produced papers could overwhelm already scarce peer reviewers and cannot be reproduced without code. They call for better monitoring of platforms selling ready-made research tools and for mandatory code sharing.