- Case
Publication of papers from industry sponsored symposium
Our scientific/medical Society added a Special Symposium to its Annual Meeting Program. The symposium organiser, who is an academic member of the Society, invited seven speakers, all from academic institutions, in addition to himself to speak at the symposium. Support for the symposium as a whole was solicited independently by the Development Committee of the Society and had no influence on the… - Case
How many “mistakes” are too many?
We published a randomised trial by six authors. Some years later, we received a letter from a researcher who had been looking into the trial in the context of a meta-analysis. She noted “implausibilities of serious concern”, including “a highly unusual balance in the distribution of baseline characteristics”, 95% CIs that were non-symmetrical about the effect estimate, and use of a… - Case
Dispute among authors
Our journal has received a paper describing a study that originated as more than one trial in more than one country, with collaboration by researchers in another country. The DSMB considered and agreed a proposal to combine the trials. It took many months to finally submit the manuscript to the journal after the end of trial. The delay in submission was caused b… - Case
Personal remarks within a post-publication literature forum
We publish an online service in which faculty members (well reputed clinicians and researchers) select, rate and evaluate influential articles of their choice. Members of the faculty can submit “dissents” to evaluations: dissents are to the fact that an article is selected, as opposed to any specific faculty member’s evaluation. The original faculty members who wrote the evaluation… - Case
Clear case of duplicate publication?
We received an article at our editorial office in April 2008. One of the referees discovered that a similar article had been published in a surgical journal in 2000. In that article, the authors presented data on the haemodynamics and intestinal blood flow in pigs. In the article submitted to us, they presented the same results, but only the first three time points (which had been includ… - Case
Should we always follow the decisions of ethics committees?
A paper was submitted to our journal describing a study in which children received general anaesthesia for a minor operation. The authors chose to induce anaesthesia with a mask and 8% sevoflurane inhalation for 8 minutes. The aim was to study the EEG over various brain areas to see where the epileptogenic activity is located. The reason for doing the study was that it has been sho… - Case
Community leaders’ consent as a proxy for individual consent
A study was submitted that reported the prevalence of an intestinal infection in a tribal community. The authors did not obtain informed individual consent for stool collection from the study participants; instead they obtained consent from the leaders of each village. The study protocol was approved by the national IRB, but the protocol made no specific mention of stool collection—it referred… - Case
Developing a procedure to deal with retractions
We have recently been alerted to the fact that an article which has been reviewed as part of our service has been retracted. This is the first time this has happened and we are currently developing a guideline on how to deal with reviews of retracted articles. We have alerted the section editors where the review was published, and we have also informed the reviewer of the article to give… - Case
A member of an author group listed on a paper denies authorship
We publish “mini-reviews” of published articles. Our faculty of eminent researchers and clinicians write these evaluations. One of the conditions we insist on from our faculty is that they may not evaluate work on which they are an author. We received a review of a paper, the authorship of which was listed as: Name A, Name B, Name C; study group X As the reviewer was a member of “… - Case
“I was acknowledged but I should be an author”
A person named in the acknowledgements of a paper wrote to the editor indicating that they had been in part responsible for the analysis and interpretation of the data and should therefore be named as an author. I have had extensive correspondence (copies of emails, etc.) from both parties and spoken to both on the telephone. Clearly, earlier there had been an exchange of data between th… - Case
Fabricated illness: a case that cannot be published under current guidance
A preschool boy had a biopsy to confirm a condition from which he subsequently made a complete recovery. Later, he and his younger brother were reported by their female carer to have developed a possible recurrence and this looked likely on near-patient testing. At each review their carer urged us to undertake further biopsies on them both, but we did not feel that this was necessary. Th… - Case
Retrospective trial registration
The authors carried out a randomised single blind controlled trial on the effects of a pain relieving intervention in pregnant women for pelvic girdle pain. Participants were recruited between 2000 and 2002 and the results were published in 2005. The trial had not been registered at the time. The authors now want to publish the adverse effects of the same intervention during pregnancy an… - Case
Consent to publication for case details, and potential for journal violation of patient anonymity
We received a paper reporting on the outcomes of treatment of an individual with obsessive–compulsive disorder and body dysmorphic disorder, which seemed not to respond to standard treatment. Following ethical review and approval, and individual consent, the individual was treated with several distinct courses of an experimental therapy. The individual’s clinical and family history, and their o… - Case
Randomisation and ethics of pilot trials
We received a paper with potentially important results. After review and revision, we accepted the paper. On further reflection, and asking more of the authors, we became concerned. It is an RCT and the only protocol available was slim but appeared authentic. There were two protocols: one for a pilot trial and, if that was positive, a second protocol aimed to randomise more people. One residual… - Case
Short case reports without formal consent
A manuscript was submitted about prenatal diagnosis of a specific cardiac disease. Short case reports of four babies who died were included. Although there are no names, we believe that there are sufficient details about the particular baby being described to be identified by the parents and by those involved in their care. The authors argue that: “As these deaths occurred over 13 years… - Case
Plagiarism in a systematic review
The editors received an unsolicited systematic review and the paper was assessed for suitability for peer review, as is the usual procedure for this journal. The editor who assessed the manuscript noticed similarities with a systematic review published in the same journal last year and investigated the extent of overlap further. The new paper covered a more s… - Case
Duplicate publication in a non-English language journal
Two authors submitted a case report which was interesting but not written in the style of the journal. The editor therefore invited the authors to rewrite the case report, and resubmit it. They did so within a week. The case report was sent out for peer review, accepted and published. The head of department of one of the authors then wrote to the journal, stating that the case report had… - Case
Incorrect allegations from the head of an institute?
After a number of appeals and revisions, and having satisfied ourselves about the results being “too good to be true”, we eventually accepted a paper. In September 2007, we received a letter from the head of the institute (and also a member of the university ethics committee) expressing concern about the paper. The allegations were: the funding source could not be that acknowledged; the authors… - Case
Allegation of fraud and insider trading
A manuscript was submitted to our journal describing a clinical trial funded by a commercial sponsor with almost all authors being either employees or having financial ties to the company. Although generally favourable, during the extensive peer review process several reviewers raised concerns about the data being “too good to be true”. The editors sought additional statistical adv… - Case
Retraction of article from 1994
Professor A and professor B has been in a dispute over a certain type of treatment for over 15 years. Professor A has accused professor B of killing a patient while he was (in professor A’s view) doing research on the patient without consent. Professor B has accused professor A of research and publication misconduct because he published a paper in journal X in 1994 that included a selected grou…