Developing novel approaches to improve the assessment of absolute risk among patients with cardiovascular disease

The possibility of dual publication of two papers with almost identical titles and an identical list of authors emerged in the course of appointing a short-listing panel for an NHS award. The potential duplication was spotted in the publications list of an applicant for the award, who was not the first author on either paper. The editor of Journal A, in which one of the papers was in press, was a member of the awards short-listing panel. Subsequent discussion and exchange of the manuscripts between both journals revealed that the research group in question had submitted a full paper in mid-1999 to Journal B, which had requested a re-submission as a short report. The group then clearly sent the same full paper, accompanied by an identical covering letter, to Journal A, without any indication that a shortened version had already been accepted for publication in Journal B. The editors conferred and also took advice from COPE. A short letter inviting comments from the senior author of the papers was sent by the editor of Journal A and elicited a telephone response from the senior author. He apologised, but presumably because he was unaware that the editor had seen all the manuscripts, asserted that in fact these were quite different papers. When he was informed that it was clear that the paper submitted to Journal B was identical to the original paper submitted to Journal A he offered to withdraw the short report in press at Journal A. The editor of Journal B told him that it was the inclination of both editors to withdraw both papers. The senior author offered to fax Journal A’s proofs so that they could be compared with the original sent to Journal B. Under the circumstances, and following further discussion, the editors agreed they should pull both papers from publication and wrote to the senior author to inform him of this decision.