A journal published a study related to a pilot programme run by an online mental health support resource which, at the time of publication, had a for-profit spinoff. At the time of the publication, this resource would share “anonymised” user data with the spinoff to create and market customer service software. Although this practice of sharing data has since been stopped, the authors of the manuscript have been brought into multiple legal challenges to their use of data as represented in the published article. At the time of submission and publication, multiple authors of the manuscript served as unpaid members of the advisory board of the spinoff, and none declared their role in the manuscript paperwork.
The journal became aware of this situation through a letter submitted by a concerned reader, who had previously been involved with the organisation as a volunteer. The complainant had resigned from their volunteer position and it appears that they will not benefit from any resolution to the data sharing issue. The letter was extremely detailed and outlined a variety of legal and ethical issues related to the study. This letter also pointed out that the authors had not disclosed that many of them sat on the advisory board of a for-profit company.
Around the same time that the journal received the letter, questions regarding the ethical use of the data were published in multiple news outlets, and a formal request to investigate the use of data by the online resource was submitted to a federal authority.
In response to these concerns, the scientific editors of the journal promptly conducted a post-publication editorial review of the paper and concluded that the analysis itself was done properly and that the conclusions were sound. COPE guidance was followed. With the permission of the reader who had contacted them with concerns, the journal presented the
corresponding author with the full complaint and asked them to respond promptly.
The corresponding author responded with a letter that addressed various aspects of the concerns, including the data sharing issues and potential undisclosed conflicts of interest. The corresponding author said that they believed that unpaid advisory board service by independent academic experts does not constitute a conflict of interest requiring disclosure, although they could see the benefit of listing such service in certain circumstances in the future. The journal disagrees with this statement and believes that action needs to be taken to respond to this lack of honest transparency.
The journal did their own review online and contacted the complainant to confirm that to date, no further legal actions or investigations regarding the online resource have been launched. Since there has not yet been a formal legal judgment related to the use of the data from the resource, the editor believes an appropriate response at this time would be to inform the authors that they must amend their publication to include their roles on the advisory board, get information from the authors and issue a corrigendum.
The journal would also like to post an editorial letter of concern related to the publication and/or submit an equivalent text to the Offices of Research Ethics at the authors’ institutions who sat on the advisory board of the related for-profit organisation.
The journal will follow up and track the outcome of other ongoing investigations related to the legality of the data use.
Questions for COPE Council
- Is this course of action appropriate?
- Are there any other actions that the journal should take?
Advice on this case is from a small number of COPE Council Members. Most cases on the COPE website are presented to the COPE Forum where advice is offered by a wider group of COPE Members and COPE Council Members. Advice on individual cases is not formal COPE guidance.
The course of action that the journal is suggesting seems appropriate. The journal has been thorough in this case and the proposed actions to issue a corrigendum and editorial, as well as approaching the institutions involved, seem suitable. The editorial note may be particularly important for context, given the complexity of the situation.
Although the journal found that the analysis and conclusions of the article are still sound, it should consider double checking with the authors of the article that the mental health resource data linked to the study were collected, used and published ethically and legally per se.
If the journal is looking to review its own stated policy on conflicts of interest, it might be useful to consider the International Committee of Medical Journal Editor (ICMJE) guidelines on declarations of conflicts of interest. These guide authors to declare all relationships so that readers can make a judgement about how to assess the paper. This would include participation as a member of an advisory board of a related organisation, paid or unpaid.