A study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that most retractions are due to misconduct rather than innocent error. -- Misconduct accounts for the majority of retracted scientific publications
"By Mr. Oransky’s estimate, there should be 20 times more retractions than are currently the case, because journals either do nothing in the face of misconduct allegations, or take years to address them." -- Are universities doing enough to address academic misconduct in research?
"After all, the electronic versions of about a third of retracted papers aren’t marked as retracted. Sometimes, like Napoleon, those papers return from exile to wreak havoc: They get cited as if they had never been retracted." Retraction Watch, Adam Marcus 12/13/2012
"As a reader once commented to us, 'there is no statute of limitation on retractions.' " -- Fang, F.C. & Casadevall, A. (2011). Retracted science and the retraction index. Infection And Immunity, 79(10), 3855-3859 https://iai.asm.org/content/79/10/3855.full
When writing your paper or article, always make every effort to check each of your citations to ensure the work you are citing is not a retracted work. If you rely on a resource that has been previously retracted, it can negatively impact your own work and reputation.
"There is currently one tool that has some traction for identifying retractions while you are viewing an article in real-time. Crossmark was created by CrossRef, which some of you may already have familiarity. Crossref is a non-profit widely known for DOI registration. Crossmark is a logo that you possibly could see within article records, and if one clicks on the CrossMark logo, the status is revealed, and one would be notified if that version of an article is up to date or if there has been a retraction or any other update like a correction, but considering user experience, seeing Crossmark logos on documents is inconsistent because a publisher would need to be Crossref members in order to display the CrossMark logos within search results. A CrossMark logo will be visible on some publisher pages but not in other commonly used databases and aggregators. Several publishers are members of CrossMark including Elsevier BV, Springer, and Oxford University Press (Publishers & Societies, 2015). Perhaps the number of publishers participating in Crossref will continue to grow. CrossMark has potential for being a consistent way for users to identify retractions, but currently it's not interoperable with bibliographic platforms like Ebsco, OVID, or Web of Science" - The Wild and Unwieldy World of Retractions by Amy Riegelman and Caitlin Bakker, University of Minnesota Libraries. https://slideplayer.com/slide/14536232/ (bolding & red color not part of the original quotations)