- Case
A problematic obituary
A short obituary for a recently deceased doctor was received. Just before the issue went to print, one of the editors recognised the deceased as having been at the centre of disciplinary proceedings for having had a sexual relationship with a patient. As a result, he had been removed from the medical register for professional misconduct around two years before his death. This was not mentioned… - Case
Undeclared conflict of interest
A published study reviewed the use of particular devices for performing a clinical manoeuvre. One of the authors worked for a consultancy, but declared that he had no conflict of interest. Subsequently, the journal received a letter pointing out that the consultancy had been set up explicitly to persuade governments and their regulatory organisations of the virtues of new drugs and technologies… - Case
Plagiarism and possible fraud
The authors of a paper published in another journal wrote to the editor of Journal A, complaining of apparent blatant plagiarism of their work by N et al. , whose paper had been published in the journal earlier in the year. Further investigation revealed that the text of the two papers was almost identical. S et al. had used one drug and N et al. had used a different one of the same class. The… - Case
Sloppiness or deception?
A case control study that links miscarriage to a particular event was published in Journal A. The paper says that most women were pregnant when interviewed. Whether or not they had miscarried when interviewed matters because of “recall bias.” In fact, most of the women who miscarried had already miscarried and so were not pregnant. The statement that most of the women were pregnant is “true” be… - Case
Attempted plagiarism of a published report
A review paper covering the prevention of a certain type of infection was submitted to Journal A. One of the reviewers identified that the paper was based word for word on a report that had published guidelines on the same area. The authors of both pieces are different. The only significant differences between the submission and the original paper were in the introduction and conclusion. The ed… - Case
“Research” without ethics committee approval
Eighteen patients with a variety of symptoms and 10 controls had various measurements taken after being given an oral glucose load. Participants also had routine blood sampling and were put on a defined diet for three days. The authors did not consider it necessary to obtain ethics committee approval, but all participating subjects signed a consent form recording their agreement to take part an… - Case
An accusation of racism
An article on the community based diagnosis of a common disease was submitted. The journal had never received a paper from this particular country before. The diagnostic test used in the study is known to have a low sensitivity and is not the accepted gold standard. The editors felt that as the author was a senior academic, it was likely that his/her institution would be one of the few in the c… - Case
Extensive plagiarism
An article published in Journal A in 2003 contains extensive, almost verbatim, unattributed quotations from an article published in Journal B in 2001. The editor asked a member of the editorial team to compare the two articles line by line, and there appears to be a high degree of overlap without any reference to the original article in Journal B. The authors of the article and the editor of Jo… - Case
Potential redundant publication
A group of authors from the same specialty unit published a study in Journal A on all prehospital X procedures. They then sent another paper on X procedure in a subgroup of patients to Journal B. Paper B references paper A, but does not make it apparent that there is any overlap in these studies. On questioning by editor B, they stated that no patients in paper B were included in the previous s… - Case
Potential duplicate publication
Following publication of a report, a country’s national health ministry set up a pilot study on two sites to examine the feasibility and acceptability of screening for infection X. The pilot study was co-ordinated by a national agency. It was agreed from the outset that the agency would lead on analysing data, co-ordinating any publications, and that the major publication output would involve b… - Case
Is it duplicate publication when the first study is referenced in the second paper?
A paper entitled: “X and Y versus X alone for condition A in children” was submitted to Journal A and published in 2001. Journal A has since been alerted to a paper published in Journal B in 1999, entitled: “Comparison of combination of X and Y with X alone in the treatment of condition A, ” written by two of the four authors in conjunction with another author not listed on paper A. Most of the… - Case
Unauthorised use of questionnaires
A journal had two incidences in which a questionnaire was used in studies without permission of the originators of the questionnaires. Both manuscripts originated in different countries, and used different questionnaires. 1. A manuscript was submitted which addressed quality of life issues. The referees had various concerns about the data and methods, and the authors were invited to revise the… - Case
Attempted dual publication?
A manuscript submitted to Journal A was sent out for external review. It detailed a single case, reporting a new surgical technique. One of the external reviewers reported that the author had presented examples of several similar cases at a conference, which had not been referred to in the submitted paper. He requested further details of their results. The editor asked the authors for more info… - Case
A patient was given an experimental course of complementary medicine when a standard treatment was available
A case report was submitted to a journal, describing a patient with a very serious, curable infectious disease who had been given complementary medicine (plant extract) rather than the standard treatment. A search of the literature indicated that the authors were known to support complementary therapies. The alternative treatment was not evidence based. The case took place in a country were the… - Case
An author thinks that a journal’s decision not to publish is ethically incorrect
A submitted paper reported on the investigation and management of an outbreak of a disease in a work environment (Company A). The authors acknowledged the referring physician from the workplace—who had declined on legal advice to be listed as an author—and also declared that the lead author had provided medical advice for remuneration to Company A during legal proceedings related to the outbrea… - Case
Possible plagiarism and fabrication
A group of six authors published a study in a peer reviewed journal, comparing the efficacy of the same class of two drugs (A and B) with a placebo and with each other. One year later the lead author of that study was searching in Medline for new evidence on the efficacy of drug A and found a study that had been published in another peer reviewed journal the year after his by three authors from… - Case
An attempt to bribe an editor
Somebody—possibly a representative of a drug company or a PR acting for the company—rang an editor on behalf of study authors to say that she would guarantee to buy 1000 reprints if the journal would continue to consider for publication a study that conflicted with a policy that the journal had just introduced. “And”, she said, “I will buy you a dinner at any restaurant you choose.” The paper w… - Case
Dual submission, salami slicing, redundant publication, or all three?
Editor A wrote to editor B, indicating that one of the reviewers of a paper submitted to Journal A contained material that had been submitted at about the same time to Journal B. Editor A requested a copy of the paper submitted to Journal B. Editor B responded, confirming that the paper in question had been submitted to Journal B (submission date two weeks earlier than the paper submitted to Jo… - Case
Babies needlessly subjected to a painful procedure for research
A paper was received, which detailed a research project conducted on newborn babies, which involved taking an invasive (and painful) sample from them. The paper was worthy of publication from the point of view of scientific value, but two issues worried the editors. First, it was unclear whether the sick babies’ samples were going to be used as part of their clinical management or whether these… - Case
Co authors’ unwillingness to support retraction of a review
A review by three authors, with Dr X as the lead author, was published in Journal A. Five months later, the editor of Journal A was informed by Professor W that a figure in the review by Dr X had originally appeared in a research paper, co-authored by Professor W in Journal B in 1990. The professor also said that Dr X had published the same or very similar figures in journals C, D (research pap…