{
  "id": 1435272,
  "title": "Science or fiction? Shadowy ‘paper mills’ let you pay to be a published author – of fraudulent research",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/15/science-or-fiction-shadowy-paper-mills-let-you-pay-to-be-a-published",
  "topic": "culture",
  "section": "Culture",
  "published": "2026-08-15T20:00:07.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Guardian Science",
    "slug": "guardian-science",
    "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/aug/16/science-or-fiction-shadowy-paper-mills-let-you-pay-to-be-a-published-author-of-fraudulent-research"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": null,
  "summary": "Paper mill activity has exploded in recent years, polluting the scientific ecosystem with falsified data and compromising medical research Dr Reese Richardson’s phone constantly buzzes with notifications. The scientific research integrity specialist has been tracking shadowy organisations known as “paper mills”, which turn a profit by offering fraudulent academic authorship of scientific papers,…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}