- Case
Patients with vitiligo treated with anti-fungal drugs by a general practitioner
…done by the HIV virus) and therefore cannot easily be diagnosed by laboratory means.”The research seems to have been done without controls. The editor wrote to the general practitioner asking whether his patients had given fully informed consent and whether he had obtained ethics committee approval. What should be done, if he has neither?… - Case
Redundant publication by an editorial board member
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… - Case
Author dispute and dual submission
A case report was submitted for consideration and, following favourable review, was accepted for publication by Journal A. All three authors signed the copyright release form, but about six weeks later a request not to publish the article was received by e-mail, which was attributed to a “misunderstanding and argument between two of the authors.” The editor wrote to all three authors… - Case
Serial plagiarism by an experienced author
Suspicions were raised on 20 September 2012 by a reviewer who commented that some of the passages in a submission from Dr J were similar to an earlier paper published in our journal by the same author. An iThenticate check indicated a similarity index of 60%: however, the overlap was not from that earlier paper but from another source by a different author which had contributed 41% of the… - Case
Withdrawal request by an author
We received a request by an author who states not to have contributed to an article published in 2015. The author claims that his name was used without his knowledge and that the corresponding author has been retired for several years and can no longer be reached. At the time of submission, we received a copyright transfer signed with the author’s name (we request all authors to sign the… - Case
The careless surgeon
_ This case had already been published in a journal the preceding year. _ The system has changed in the past 10 years since these issues first arose, but the committee felt that the information could be published as a source of interest on what used to happen. _ It was suggested that the article be re-published, accompanied by five people’s responses as to what would happen now.… - Seminars and webinars
China Seminar 2017: Peer review in the journals published by Chinese Medical Association, experiences and challenges
…Download presentation: Peer review in the journals published by Chinese Medical Association: experiences and challenges [PDF, 451KB]… - Case
The results that were too good to believe
A study made it a long way through the peer review process before one of the statistical advisors said that the results seemed “too good to be true.” The authors were asked to send in the original data, which the statistician analysed. He remained very concerned about the data. The authors were notified and the journal asked the university to investigate. Has the editor done the right thing? - Case
Authors’ contributions and involvement by medical communications company
The editorial office was contacted by someone who indicated that s/he has been working with a medical communications company on several manuscripts and has become concerned about the minimal extent of the authors’ contributions to manuscripts handled by the company. The work requested by the company goes beyond language editing, and involves developing parts of manuscripts into narrative on… - Case
A systematic review on a country’s health problem written by non-native authors
Journal A received a submission which focused on a systematic review/meta-analysis of a health problem in a specific country. It was written by four authors who do not live in that country. In addition, none of the authors seem to have any professional affiliation with any institution or researchers in that country. The systematic review/meta-analysis was based on published references and did… - News
Call for cases - November COPE Forum
Our next COPE Forum, where we discuss cases submitted by members, will be held by webinar on Monday 13 November 2017. Cases need to be submitted by Monday 30 October. Submit a case… - Case
Findings of a published trial called into question by a subsequent audit of trial conduct
…accurate by our journal). The following concerns were raised by the regulatory authorities:(1) There was no medical involvement in the process for informed consent, which was delegated to a non-medical practitioner. The country’s regulations require that a medical practitioner informs a participant and confirms this. The local ethics committee has been informed by the regulator about this… - Case
Author alleges discrimination by institutional report
…protocols were approved by the IACUC, which is against journal policy. The journal considered this sufficient information to proceed with retraction of the article. After informing the corresponding author of the retraction notice, the author responded that the conflict was an authorship dispute and that they have been the target of racial discrimination at the institution. The journal and… - Case
Publication of misleading information and publication
I analysed the results of a randomised controlled trial that had just been completed by some of my colleagues. The trial compared an oxygen radical scavenger with a placebo in patients with acute myocardial infarction. One of the major outcome measures included infarct size,as measured by nuclear imaging. My analysis showed that there was no significant difference between groups for either of… Increasing number of fraudulent papers produced by “paper mills”
…href="https://publicationethics.org/publishing-manipulation-paper-mills"> Systematic manipulation of the publishing process via “paper mills” and how to identify and tackle this type of fraudulent behaviour. Paper mills produce and sell fraudulent manuscripts that seem to resemble genuine research. Articles are bought by people who need to publish research in order to get a job or promotion. This type of manipulation is often difficult to spot until…- News
Case discussion: Authors’ contributions and involvement by medical communications company
Case Summary Case 14-07 Authors' contributions and involvement by medical communications company An employee of a medical communications company contacted a journal’s editorial office. For several manuscripts, the employee had helped develop the… - Case
Scientist reads published paper by former collaborators and claims co-authorship
…A examined and screened patients . Dr A used data gathered in July 2007 within the framework of a study headed by Dr B. Dr A is listed as “another scientist involved” in the report from the funder and in a grant application. This application was to be on behalf of both Dr A and Dr B, and some others, but made no mention of Dr B’s study, although Dr B’s study had provided the funding for gathering the data… - Case
Sharing by a reviewer on social media
The journal’s course of action in this case needs to be guided by the objective. The point of double blind peer review is to reduce bias during the review process. While of course anonymity of the authors ends upon publication of the work, anonymity of the reviewers’ identity in a double blind peer review process typically continues after publication because of the contract that the journal… - Case
Author non-disclosure by editor in chief
Please note, this case is being submitted by the Publishing Director of the journal based on the advice of a senior COPE member because it relates to the conduct of the editor in chief of the journal. The editor in chief of the journal is aware that the case is being submitted. A letter of complaint was submitted in November 2009 relating to an editorial published in one of our… - Case
Concerns over research by an author in numerous, separate publications
The authenticity of the content of numerous publications by Author K has been questioned by ‘concerned researchers’ in an anonymous email sent to the Editor of Journal A in December 2009. The email noted that author K had been publishing articles in numerous journals that “report remarkable findings that watching humorous films, drinking deep-sea water, exposure to road traffic,…