1998

A paper submitted for consideration in March 1997 was peer reviewed, successfully modified, and accepted for publication in June 1997. In January 1998 the paper was prepared for publication, and a commentary sought from an expert in the same field, scheduled for publication in the same issue. The expert drew the editor’s attention to the fact that a similar paper (albeit in shortened form) had been published in another journal in November 1997, after the paper to this journal had been accepted. The editor of the second journal who had no knowledge of the paper being submitted to to this journal. The papers were examined and the following conclusions drawn: 1 The sample size,methods,and results were identical for both papers. 2 The discussions were similar, lthough reworded slightly. 3 Additional data had been added to the paper for one journal which had been omitted for the short report in the other journal.

A paper was submitted crediting three authors. The paper was sent to one of the journal’s regular statistical reviewers without noticing that she happened to be the second author.  She wrote back to say that she had not been involved in writing the manuscript, nor had she seen this paper before. She did say, however, that she had supervised the computer input of the questionnaire data and that she had provided some general advice on the simple statistical presentation of the data. Should any action be taken against the corresponding author, or should we simply explain what we mean by authorship and contributorship?

A specialist journal received a paper for review. An editorial board member was one of the authors. The paper was sent out for review and one reviewer replied quite favourably. A few days later the reviewer sent the editor a copy of a paper seen in another journal that was very similar to the one under consideration, and by the same authors. It was the same population and the same study, just a slightly different aspect of the paper. No mention of this study had been made in the paper submitted to the specialist journal. The editor wrote to the board member, who replied saying that there are some important differences between the papers,and that the one submitted to the journal is intended to be the main paper that will be cited, with further reports published in due course. The board member acknowledged that the previous paper should have been cited. What should happen about the specific paper? There clearly was a lack of transparency and it is hard to believe the board member was really so naive as to overlook the need to mention the previous publication. And what should be done about the board member?

A paper reported a questionnaire study of patients’ views on their preferences between minimal access and open access surgery. The questionnaires had been given to patients attending two types of clinic. The paper made no mention of ethical approval and the author was asked to clarify. He responded that he had not obtained ethical approval but that he had spoken to the chairman of the hospital ethics committee who would consider giving this retrospectively. A subsequent email from the chairman of the ethics committee to the journal expressed doubt about the value of retrospective approval, pointing out that when a study was reviewed prospectively it was possible to suggest changes to the protocol, which obviously could not be done when it was viewed retrospectively. The chairman added that “it is certainly not a foregone conclusion that we would have passed this study.” The internal editorial committee considered this case in particular, and the general issue of retrospective ethical approval, when the authors have simply forgotten or not thought of obtaining it. They were unanimous in deciding that retrospective ethical approval was not acceptable and that this paper must be rejected,  explaining the reason.

A research letter was submitted from a team of investigators,A, B, C, and D. In their covering letter they reported that: A was involved in planning the study, collecting patient samples, and in writing the manuscript; B measured IL-10 polymorphisms and analysed the results; C was involved in supervising the measurement of polymorphisms and in writing the manuscript; D was involved in planning the study and writing the manuscript. The letter was peer reviewed and published. The corresponding author was D. Ten days later a letter was received from B and C who work at a different institution from D, inviting us to publish an erratum. Their substantive corrections were noted, together with the comment that “in addition, we wish to point out that B and C contributed equally to the content of this report”. C also enclosed a copy of a letter to D stating that he was very unhappy about the fact that the others had never seen the proofs so that the mistakes,as shown enclosed, could have been corrected. C considered it unethical not to show coauthors the proofs. Further strong comments about the breakdown of the research collaboration followed. D replied “surprised and saddened.”He argued that in the collaboration “the idea for this research was therefore entirely generated by us”. Furthermore, he said, B and C “saw and agreed to all the changes in the short manuscript and the final version that was submitted to the journal with all our signatures.” He went on: “I had to review the proofs within 24 hours and fax them back. There was no time to send this to the other authors for their approval (and we do not do this routinely in our department as it is usually the responsibility of the corresponding author). I am very concerned that you have sent off a letter to the journal without the courtesy of letting us see it beforehand. This is most unusual behaviour and can only have a damaging effect. The erratum is curious as these changes should have been made in the original manuscript.” What do we do about the alleged and apparently disputed erratum? Should journals have a clear policy about authors (all, some, the senior, or only the corresponding) seeing galley proofs? If so,what should the policy be?

An international specialist medical journal has editors in the UK and abroad who function independently. An issue of a scientific journal in 1998 reported that the overseas editor had been dismissed from a university professorship because of scientific fraud. This had been documented in three published research papers.The report highlighted a particular paper, in which 27 references cited indicated the editor was the author or coauthor of 19 of the papers. Laboratory notebooks detailing the research had disappeared. The university committee stated that the study falsely presented data, and that these had been manipulated to produce the desired statistical results. The editor stated that there had been honest errors and that the laboratory staff had used poor research methods. The editor is attempting legally to overturn the university’s action. The UK editor wrote to the journal asking whether the incident discussed affects the editorial arrangements for the journal. Is there anything else the editor should do and does the problem affect his own position as an editor working in parallel with the overseas editor, as neither one is accountable to the other?

A paper was submitted to journal A which was published as a rapid communication. It was subsequently discovered that the major US journal in this specialty had published other findings from the same set of patients, and that the paper had been considered by them at the same time. The messages of the two papers are closely related but different, but either one could have been amalgamated into the other for one publication. All of this came to light when the authors submitted a further paper to journal A about the same patients. This time they used a new technique to expand on their studies which seemed perfectly reasonable; what is strange is that they did not acknowledge that the samples they analysed were taken from patients whose cases had been used and published before. Indeed, neither of the two previous papers acknowledges the other. A letter was sent to the senior author, asking for an explanation. The senior author responded by saying that her submission letter to me stating that none of the work had been published elsewhere was a proforma letter and the signature was an oversight.

A study by Japanese authors was submitted to specialist journal A. The manuscript was sent to three reviewers, including expert X. After two weeks, expert X contacted the editorial office to say that an identical manuscript had been sent by the competing specialist journal B to expert Y in the same unit as expert X. Expert X and expert Y had compared and discussed both manuscripts. Expert X said that the Japanese authors were clearly attempting dual publication, were therefore completely unethical,and should be reprimanded severely. As editor of journal A,what should be done about: 1 The issue of apparently simultaneous submission to two journals? 2 The breach of con?dentiality by expert X (and also expert Y, commissioned by another journal B)?

A reviewer detected that a paper received for review was almost identical to a paper published by the same group three years earlier in a journal of a different specialty. The paper concerned clinical and investigative aspects of a disease that crossed two specialties. Although the authors had included their previous paper in the reference list, the title of the paper had been changed from that in the other journal. References to this in the introduction and discussion were brief in the extreme and did not indicate in any way that the authors were re-studying, or re-reporting the same patients or data set.