  In this article, we show the results of a quantitative and qualitative
analysis of open citations on a popular and highly cited retracted paper:
"Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive
developmental disorder in children" by Wakefield et al., published in 1998. The
main purpose of our study is to understand the behavior of the publications
citing retracted articles and the characteristics of the citations the
retracted articles accumulated over time. Our analysis is based on a
methodology which illustrates how we gathered the data, extracted the topics of
the citing articles, and visualized the results. The data and services used are
all open and free to foster the reproducibility of the analysis. The outcomes
concerned the analysis of the entities citing Wakefield et al.'s article and
their related in-text citations. We observed a constant increasing number of
citations in the last 20 years, accompanied with a constant increment in the
percentage of those acknowledging its retraction. Citing articles have started
either discussing or dealing with the retraction of Wakefield et al.'s article
even before its full retraction, happened in 2010. Articles in the social
sciences domain citing the Wakefield et al.'s one were among those that have
mostly discussed its retraction. In addition, when observing the in-text
citations, we noticed that a large part of the citations received by Wakefield
et al.'s article has focused on general discussions without recalling strictly
medical details, especially after the full retraction. Medical studies did not
hesitate in acknowledging the retraction and often provided strong negative
statements on it.
