2005

Author A published a paper in Journal X, which presented evidence of failure by another research group to declare a serious conflict of interest in a paper that had been published some years before in Journal Y. This conflict of interest centred around the undeclared involvement of a third party with a vested interest. Evidence for this was presented in the form of correspondence from the third party stating explicitly that they had developed the work and written a draft of the paper.

A reviewer informed Journal A that a manuscript s/he had been asked to review was very similar to one s/he had reviewed for Journal B. The lead author was informed about this and told the editors would come back to him after discussing the matter further.

Dr B accepted an invitation to review a manuscript for Journal A. Dr B was aware only of the title of the manuscript and had read the abstract before accepting the invitation. He was also aware that he was to return his review within two weeks.

An English language journal received a study describing a randomised controlled trial. The paper was accepted and published several months later. Five months after its publication the editors were informed that a similar study had been published in a German language journal two years earlier. Three of the four authors were involved. It had been carried out over the same time period, using the same methods, and had arrived at the same conclusion.