An article written by eminent doctors on a subject of great public interest, with implications for public health policy, was published in Journal A. They subsequently wrote to Journal A, indicating that an article had been published in Journal B, which heavily plagiarised theirs. The editor of Journal A wrote to the authors of the second paper, but has received no satisfactory replies. The second paper claims to report the results of examinations of 30,000 people and is therefore the largest epidemiological study in the field. The editor of Journal A, who is an expert on the issue described, suspects that the study could not have been done with the financial or logistical resources available to the authors. The authors include at least seven whose institutions are nowhere near the location of the study, and their contributions are not mentioned in the manuscript. The work would have had to have been carried out in a public facility, but when the editor wrote to the head of that facility, s/he knew nothing about the study. A literature search revealed that the same group of authors had published several papers claiming to have investigated large study cohorts. The editor suspects that such large pieces of work would have been very difficult, as the authors would not have had enough, time, patients, or funds to support these studies. The authors have also published many other studies detailing the results of other controlled trials. Cursory examination of these reveals many similar patterns and deficiencies between the number of potentially available patients and the extent of the cohort reported. The editor has detailed his concerns to a national body in the field. What should he do now?
- The editor should write up a detailed critique of the papers. - The editor should contact Journal B to get the article retracted.