- Case
Simultaneous publication
About a month after our journal (Journal A) published a paper (Paper X), the journal received emails from readers that Paper X was very similar to a paper (Paper Y) that had just been published by another journal (Journal B). Some of these emails were sent to both journal offices. Paper X was submitted to Journal A a few days before Paper Y was submitted to Journal B and Paper X wa… - CaseCase Closed
Misattributed authorship and unauthorized use of data
…submission, author A was affiliated with institution 1 and institution 2. Author D is affiliated with institution 1, while author B, author C and the director are affiliated with institution 2. Author A stated that he included author B and author C as coauthors due to their help with language editing, but he agreed with their request to be removed from the authors list. When asked to comment on his previous… - CaseCase Closed
Lack of ethical approval and not reporting experimental evidence
…standard from the authors, but they do not seem to have broken the rules as at the time of submission (in 1995), formal approval was not considered mandatory. In terms of the data, the Forum agreed that the editor needs to decide whether the basic findings of the study are sound. By leaving out some of the data, were the readers mislead? If the data that have been omitted are incidental and do not… - CaseCase Closed
Lack of trial registration leads to new concerns about study conduct and ethical review/approval
Following publication of an article, the editors noticed that the paper reported results of a clinical trial, but no details of trial registration were included in the article. (The journal does have careful checks on trial registration by staff at submission but this paper was not well written and it took careful reading to work out that it did in fact report on a clinical trial). We… - CaseOn-going
Suspect author
There were various views on how to proceed in this difficult case. Some agreed with sending the analysis to the institution and the suspect author, at the same time, informing them that the intention is to publish the analysis in the journal, and then see what type of response this elicits. Others disagreed and recommended treating the analysis like any other submission (despite the fact that… - Case
Authorship issue
…co-authors on this paper. That is, they believe that they made substantive intellectual contributions to Dr C’s research study. As authors, they would need to approve the submission of the manuscript to the journal. The editors emphasised their journal’s adherence to the guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors regarding criteria for authorship, which are contained in the… - CaseOn-going
Concerns over research by an author in numerous, separate publications
…to find some email and postal addresses for the author, by searching online and going back through previous submission records. An article by the author was submitted and published in 2004, and the editor of our journal has mentioned that the paper “could easily be fabricated”. The editorial office sent a message to the author expressing concern about the integrity of a paper that was published in…