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Plagiarism case
Journal X was contacted by Author A, who claimed that a paper published in that journal ten years previously (by Author B) was plagiarised from Author A’s article in Journal Y published approximately ten years prior to that. Author A requested the retraction of Author B’s paper. Journal X has run plagiarism software on both papers to see the degree of text replication and it is not signi… - CaseCase Closed
Retraction request after university investigation found no evidence of fraud
Dr X claimed to have found fabrication and falsification of data in an article submitted for publication by Dr Y. Dr Y’s university investigated and found no evidence of fraud but a genuine error in the figure. Dr X provided more information and a further investigation was initiated. It again dismissed the complaint as unfounded. The paper was then published. Dr X is now asking the journal for… - CaseCase Closed
Image manipulation case
A journal was contacted by a non-anonymous whistleblower pointing out problems with two figures in a published paper. The journal wrote to the authors, who provided them with films for the gels and an explanation and additional figure data for the histology image, where a mistake was made when assembling the images. The journal published an erratum and informed the whistleblower. Subsequ… - CaseCase Closed
Secondary analysis of medical records and ethics committee approval
A journal received a manuscript using secondary analysis of existing medical records in which there was no indication that ethics approval was obtained from a recognized ethics review board or that participants gave their informed consent to be included in the study. Instead, the authors explained that the study had been based on a secondary analysis of existing medical records and that no pati… - CaseCase Closed
Post-publication correction because of lack of consent
An article that has been published in our journal has subsequently been found to have serious ethical issues. The authors did not seek the correct ethics approval from their institution before conducting the research (which involves human subjects). They also did not obtain informed consent from the research participants prior to publication. The article in question is a case study of a… - CaseCase Closed
Boundaries of duplicate submission
A paper was submitted to journal A. The reviewers were enthusiastic but raised substantive concerns. The editorial decision was 'reject with resubmission allowed', providing the authors the opportunity to submit a revision if they feel all concerns can be addressed. The authors elected to submit substantially the same report to journal B. The outcome was essentially the same; the paper was reje… - CaseCase Closed
Permission to publish a case report
A journal published ahead of print a peer-reviewed scientific letter by Drs A (corresponding), B, C, D and E with a description of four patients who underwent a certain procedure. One of the cases took place in hospital X. Dr C works at hospital X. However, the corresponding author (Dr A) and the other 2 authors (Drs B and D) do not work for hospital X. The journal received an em… - CaseCase Closed
Publication of an article accepted 5 years ago
Several years ago a previous editor of a journal accepted an article for publication following peer review. The current editor feels that the article should not have been accepted in the first instance, but rejected instead. After acceptance, the article was sent to a copy editor who was scheduled to work on it. However, the process was stopped by the previous editor and the copy editor. The la… - CaseCase Closed
Critical comment and conflict of interest
Journal A received an article by Dr X (Article 1) commenting on another author’s work (Dr. Y) which had been published in Journal A and another journal (Journal B) of a different publisher. Because the scientific arguments were involved, and because the articles being criticised had been cited many times in the literature, the Editors of Journal A rejected Dr X's request to publish the work as… - CaseCase Closed
Should a journal disclose peer reviewer names?
A journal received a manuscript in July concerning the conditions surrounding the ending of an individual’s contract of employment. Following peer review and revision, the manuscript was accepted and published in October of the same year. Two years later, the journal received a letter from a lawyer representing a client who was suing the former employer discussed in the article. The author of t… - CaseCase Closed
Authors used pseudonyms on a published article
A publisher has recently become aware that an article published in one of their journals two years ago uses pseudonyms instead of the real names of the two authors. Communication with the corresponding author has confirmed the use of pseudonyms. The corresponding author has informed the publisher that the authors used pseudonyms in order to obtain a fair review of the paper (the paper is in an… - CaseCase Closed
Concerns regarding image manipulation and inconsistent figure legends
A journal received a complaint from readership about manipulation of images of gels and also of some figures which had been published as part of a thesis with different sample legends. The authors were contacted to provide explanations for the observed inconsistencies. The authors provided full images and then an official expert analysis, but the Editor-in-Chief did not feel that these response… - CaseCase Closed
Dispute over submitted comment and the right to be forgotten
Some time after publishing a paper, a journal received a comment highlighting serious issues with the methods reported, and claiming that the conclusions could not be trusted. The comment was 13 pages long and rather technical in nature, so it was peer reviewed. The journal contacted the authors to respond to the comment but they replied that they wished instead to completely rem… - CaseCase Closed
Reviewer anonymity in post publication peer review
A journal with an open peer review process (names and reports published alongside articles) accepted an article after assessment by three peer reviewers. Two reviewers were positive and the third reviewer raised some concerns about the methodology. A revised version of the manuscript was published alongside the three peer reviewer reports and the authors’ response After publicatio… - CaseCase Closed
Retraction because of scientific misconduct even if the conclusions are sound?
A journal was alerted to potential image manipulation in four papers published over the course of twelve years by the same corresponding author. The journal contacted the corresponding author who provided some raw data for some of the papers but not all of them, and was not able to explain the apparent manipulation (which included, in one paper, a duplicate image from a paper published in anoth… - CaseCase Closed
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 n… - CaseCase Closed
Duplicate publication in multicentre consortia
Two closely related journals received a series of manuscripts each based on descriptions of a complex medical procedure by multicentre consortia. At least three separate consortia submitted three separate papers. Each consortium included centres which were shared between the three groups and likely have the same patients/procedures represented in different reports. For example: … - CaseCase Closed
Author refuses to comply with editorial review prior to production and publication
The Editor-in-Chief of a journal received a message from a corresponding author of a brief communication, stating that the proposed editorial edits were beyond typical formatting edits at this stage. They felt said many edits were not appropriate, would need further response and suggested holding this article (which had already been in process with the journal for over a year) for the next edit… - CaseCase Closed
Unauthorised use of data
A multicentre study conducted with a working group involving 38 centres was published in our journal. Author A was a member of one of the centres and was listed as the 13th author in the article. Another colleague (author B) who is not a coauthor and who works in the same department as author A, contacted our journal and claimed that the data from the centre used by author A in the study were u… - Case
Registration of a randomised control trial
Journal A received a manuscript—a randomised, controlled, double anonymous, parallel clinical trial. The manuscript was reviewed by two specialist reviewers who suggested acceptance after revision. One of the important points that was asked was to provide the “registration number of the RCT”. As our journal is a member of the ICMJE, we reviewed the instructions of the ICMJE and found that there…