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2006

Case

Ethical approval for retrospective study

06-06

A paper reported the clinical outcomes of patients suffering from a neglected disease before and after a change in the national treatment policy which raised the threshold of one laboratory parameter before a more toxic, but more effective drug could be used. The authors did a retrospective cohort study of patients treated under both policies, to see how this change affected outcomes.

Case

Problem with figures

06-05

(1) An article was published after peer review. Shortly after online publication we received a message from a reader (an academic who works in the same field as the authors) notifying us of a major concern with one of the figures in the article.

“I am writing with regard of manuscript XXX recently published in XXX. These studies raise significant expectations in XXX patients, because the proposed strategy achieved unanticipated therapeutic success in a preclinical model of XXX.

Case

Author dispute over need for retraction

06-04

The authors of a paper are in disagreement over whether the paper should be retracted.  One group of authors (group 1) wishes to publish a correction, and another group (group 2) feel that is inadequate, and the paper should be retracted.  Group 2 is concerned that one of the authors, author X, in group 1 is guilty of scientific misconduct. The remaining group 1 authors do not support this claim.

Case

Accusation of theft of a model

06-03

During refereeing of an article, one of the referees made an accusation of theft regarding a model described in the article. The referee and the authors had been collaborating on a review article previously, but had fallen out. The journal requested evidence from the parties. This involved several rounds of requests to the accuser, as the journal felt that the accuser was not providing anything amounting to actual evidence of the alleged theft.

Case

Patient consent

06-01

The journal received a case report for a patient presenting with a particular syndrome in which patients give approximate answers to simple questions. This syndrome has been considered as a dissociative condition but others have argued that it reflects simulation of psychiatric symptoms. The case report was an individual who had crashed his car and, following that, developed complaints of memory impairment and at psychiatric review this syndrome was diagnosed.

Case

Duplicate publication

06-02

An email was received from a reader indicating a possible duplicate publication of an article that appeared in the journal in 2004, and a similar publication that appeared in another journal in 2003. The Editor immediately wrote to the author, and to the editor of the other journal, expressing his concerns. The author responded five days later saying that he did not believe that the papers were duplicates.

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