- Case
Homeoprophylactic treatment of a zoonotic disease
This research article investigated the effect of the widespread administration of a homeoprophylactic preparation against a bacterial zoonotic disease in a developing country after a period of particularly heavy rainfall. The authors claim to have given this oral preparation to all members of the population over 1 year of age, in three provinces of the country where this disease is prevalent (o… - Case
Pedigree descriptions: genotyping results for family members
We received a paper which describes genotyping results from a large number of individuals (>50) from five unrelated families, in which family members had various blood and liver conditions. On submission we noted that the paper included specific details regarding the clinical histories of individuals in each family. Some individuals were described in substantial detail, others only briefly.… - Case
Ethics and consent in research
A letter was sent to the chief editor of our journal in response to a recently published article in our journal. The author had serious concerns about the ethics and consent obtained as a result of this study and the follow-up by the researchers. The author explained that he was the physician of two of the “volunteers” who participated in this study and was concerned about informed conse… - Case
Possible plagiarism
A review paper (paper 1) was published in journal A. A review paper on the same subject (paper 2) by a different author was published in my journal (journal B) later in the same year. The authors of paper 1 and the editor of journal A informed me that paper 2 had in part been plagiarised from paper 1. I as editor of journal B looked to the COPE flowchart for guidance and I wrote to the… - Case
HIV homeopathy
The authors carried out a study. A homeopathic treatment was given to people with HIV/AIDs. The outcome was quality of life, as measured by a questionnaire after 1 month and 18 months of treatment. Participants were selected for inclusion if they had a HIV seropositive status at the time of study and were not taking any other kind of HIV/AIDs treatment. The participants were stratified i… - Case
Concern about reporting of a trial and also its DSMB
We received a paper reporting a trial. There has only been one previous trial of this intervention in this condition that we know of (which was also done by these investigators). There were substantial issues with the reporting of that trial but the end result, as reported by them, favoured the intervention. The trial we received, presumably approved after that result had come out, had… - Case
Has formal ethical approval been granted that satisfies publication criteria?
The issue here is whether formal ethics approval has been granted in order to satisfy publication criteria. By way of some background information, a lot of screening data are collected on many athletes in many sports, both nationally and internationally. Historically, clubs and associations have disclaimers whereby athletes sign consent for their data to be used for audit purposes on the provis… - Case
Possible serial misconduct in relation to coauthors and other activities
I am the editor of an international clinical journal and am facing a very unusual problem that does not fit readily into COPE flowcharts. Through a reviewer, I was informed that an author had submitted a paper without the approval of at least one of the other authors. This appeared to be confirmed by two other authors. In response to my bringing this possibility to the first author’s at… - Case
Repeated alleged plagiarism in case reports
Our journal has recently been the subject of an attack of attempted plagiarism by an author from a military hospital in another country. The first evidence of this was alerted to us by one of our reviewers who identified an almost word-for-word copy of a paper previously published in which the disease being treated was changed slightly and a few numbers but everything else, including the refere… - Case
A severe case of plagiarism?
A review article was submitted to the journal and sent for peer review. One of the reviewers brought to the editor’s attention that a substantial number of sentences and sections of the paper had directly, verbatim, been copied from chapter books and a monograph he had written in the past. The editor asked the reviewer to provide the texts in question. The editor carefully compared the submitte… - Case
A(uthor) vs C(omplainant) authorship dispute
A was a researcher in C’s lab for 1 year, during which time they published a joint research paper in a third party journal (journal S). After leaving C’s institute (henceforth called institute X), A published in the journal (journal T as a sole author). The affiliation provided by A on the paper was institute X. All of the data reported in this paper were obtained while A was still employed at… - Case
Confidentiality and consent in case reports
We would appreciate COPE Forum’s advice with regard to consent and confidentiality in the publication of case histories. Our journal is published three times a year and has a relatively small circulation but also goes to some postgraduate medical libraries, so is potentially available to a much wider audience. Our subscribers are doctors working with patients presenting with sexua… - Case
Author did not see reviews or revisions to the manuscript and did not give approval for publication
Approximately 1 year after publication of an article, we received a letter from one of the authors saying that they had not seen the reviews of the paper, the revisions of the paper or approved the final manuscript for publication. This was subsequently confirmed by the other authors who said that contact with the complainant had “broken down” and that the corresponding author had indicated tha… - Case
Plagiarism in a case report
I received a phone call from the first Author (A) of a case report published in our journal in 2005, who informed us that he had received a letter from an Author (B) of a research letter which had been published in another journal in 2000, stating that 12–15 sentences from the research letter had been copied in the case report. Having compared the papers, about… - 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… - Case
How many “mistakes” are too many?
We published a randomised trial by six authors. Some years later, we received a letter from a researcher who had been looking into the trial in the context of a meta-analysis. She noted “implausibilities of serious concern”, including “a highly unusual balance in the distribution of baseline characteristics”, 95% CIs that were non-symmetrical about the effect estimate, and use of a… - Case
Should we always follow the decisions of ethics committees?
A paper was submitted to our journal describing a study in which children received general anaesthesia for a minor operation. The authors chose to induce anaesthesia with a mask and 8% sevoflurane inhalation for 8 minutes. The aim was to study the EEG over various brain areas to see where the epileptogenic activity is located. The reason for doing the study was that it has been sho… - Case
Community leaders’ consent as a proxy for individual consent
A study was submitted that reported the prevalence of an intestinal infection in a tribal community. The authors did not obtain informed individual consent for stool collection from the study participants; instead they obtained consent from the leaders of each village. The study protocol was approved by the national IRB, but the protocol made no specific mention of stool collection—it referred… - Case
Consent to publication for case details, and potential for journal violation of patient anonymity
We received a paper reporting on the outcomes of treatment of an individual with obsessive–compulsive disorder and body dysmorphic disorder, which seemed not to respond to standard treatment. Following ethical review and approval, and individual consent, the individual was treated with several distinct courses of an experimental therapy. The individual’s clinical and family history, and their o… - Case
Randomisation and ethics of pilot trials
We received a paper with potentially important results. After review and revision, we accepted the paper. On further reflection, and asking more of the authors, we became concerned. It is an RCT and the only protocol available was slim but appeared authentic. There were two protocols: one for a pilot trial and, if that was positive, a second protocol aimed to randomise more people. One residual…