Springer Publishing, one of the world’s leading publishers of Science, Technology and Medicine (STM) books and journals, issued an announcement this week that 64 different professional articles, primarily in the medical field, had been retracted.

Leading science publisher retracts dozens of papers for fake peer reviews http://t.co/LbvAF2ViN9

— HotAir.com (@hotairblog) August 19, 2015

It turns out that the vaunted peer review process, designed to ensure that multiple sets of experts evaluate the quality of the work before it hits the presses, had fallen apart. The peer reviews in some cases were found to be “highly suspicious” with bogus email addresses and questionable credentials.