A Letter to the Editor was submitted to Journal A – this Letter contained major criticisms of a paper previously published in Journal A, in particular of the statistical analysis underpinning the conclusions and the study design, and called for its retraction. The Editor sent the Letter out for peer review and some revisions were made by the authors. Based on both the content of the Letter and the reports by the reviewers of the Letter, the Editor has decided that the original paper should be retracted. The authors of the original article have not replied to Editor when asked to respond to the criticisms raised in the Letter.
The Editor wants to publish the Letter and the retraction notice simultaneously.
Questions for COPE Council
- Is it appropriate to publish a Letter that discusses a retracted paper (i.e. a paper that no longer ‘exists’ in the literature)?
- Given that the reason for retracting the original paper is flawed statistical analysis which is explained in detail in the Letter and would be difficult to incorporate into a retraction notice, does this affect the answer to the question above?
- What would other Editors do in this situation?
Advice on this case is from a small number of COPE Council Members. Most cases on the COPE website are presented to the COPE Forum where advice is offered by a wider group of COPE Members and COPE Council Members. Advice on individual cases is not formal COPE guidance.
Council believe it is absolutely essential that the original authors are given the chance to respond before the paper is retracted. The letter can be published but the original authors need to be involved if possible. The editor needs to email all of the previous authors with the correspondence, saying that they plan to retract the paper, and get their response. It is useful to give them a time frame in which to respond. If they do not respond, the editor should do some extra checking to try to locate them. The editor should try contacting the involved institutions. It is very important that the retraction comes either from the authors or from the editors. If the retraction comes from the editors, they could cite the letter and yes, the letter has to cite the paper it is discussing. If the authors do not respond, that should be made clear in any retraction notice.