Numerous research papers were entered into preprint or published in what very well could be attempts at misdirection of public understanding of medicine during the pandemic. These papers were barely checked for veracity by anyone (clearly), were cited often in new research, and live on through chains of citations in hundreds or thousands of papers to date, poisoning all of their results. We might call this Science Virus Disease of 2020, or Sci-Vid-20.

Star Trek-theme research gets outed after years of publication in a vanity journal. 

This does not change the fact that Captain Picard is still the grandfather you want fixing &#!t that federal authorities break when it all crumbles under the weight of endemic corruption.