- Case
Ethical dilemma involving religious beliefs
The editor and co-editors of a book have a query concerning an ethical dilemma involving possible authors for a book chapter. The book concerns certain diseases in pregnancy and the authors have been approached to contribute a chapter. Both authors are apparently deeply religious and have expressed a strong concern about contributing to a book in which views may be expressed that are aga… - CaseOn-going
Publication of data without permission
A director of an institute in France has expressed concern about a paper published in our journal. One of the authors (not the corresponding author) of the paper, person A, visited his laboratory in France for 5 months in 2009 to carry out some work. The director says that some methods used and results obtained in his laboratory have now been included in the paper without his knowledge or permi… - CaseCase Closed
Peer reviewer contacted by author
In a single anonymous peer review process, a reviewer gave an author detailed suggestions about improvements in the statistical analysis. The author was asked to revise and resubmit the paper to address these and other reviewers' suggestions. The author, unaware of the reviewer’s identity, subsequently approached the reviewer as a respected colleague at a professional meeting to discuss the man… - CaseOn-going
Possible image manipulation
A whistleblower posted on PubPeer regarding some apparently overlapping images in an article published several years earlier. To the research integrity team there appeared similarities, enough to warrant a request for the original images / raw data from the authors. The authors said they no longer had access to the original data and have denied any editing was made to the images. We commissione… - Case
Dual submission
Paper 1 was submitted to journal A. The paper dealt with monitoring of a chemical element in various occupations in a range of workplaces. Samples were taken from the workplace air and bodily fluids of the workers, and conclusions were drawn about what metabolite should be measured in order to estimate a worker’s dose of the element. The chosen reviewers were experts in relevant biological moni… - CaseOn-going
Ethical concerns and the validity of documentation supplied by the authors
We became concerned that not all of the co-authors were aware of a research paper submitted to our journal due to the difficulty receiving responses from the email addresses that had been supplied and their nature, given that the authors all worked in a hospital/academic institution. Despite repeated requests and attempts we remained dissatisfied with the responses and did not feel certain that… - CaseOn-going
Author alleges discrimination by institutional report
In 2020, the corresponding author of an article published online three years previously notified the journal of an authorship conflict and explained that the institution was requesting retraction. Because authorship conflict does not typically warrant retraction, the publisher requested further details from the author and the author's institution about the conflict. The author provided two… - CaseOn-going
Author retracts request to be removed from author list
…href="https://publicationethics.org/retraction-guidelines">Retraction Guidelines states that: 'Authors sometimes request that articles are retracted when authorship is disputed after publication. If there is no reason to doubt the validity of the findings or the reliability of the data, it is not appropriate to retract a publication solely on the grounds of an authorship dispute. In such cases, the editor should inform those involved in the dispute that… - CaseCase Closed
Using the name of a scientific society inappropriately
…If it is not already required, a complete disclosure statement about authorship and affiliations should be in place. There are always differences in interpretation between the "positions" that societies take on clinical issues and a good reviewer who is also a practicing clinician would likely identify those differences. So, rounding out the review panel for something that has such long-term impact… - CaseOn-going
Conflicting claims of intellectual property?
Dr R, of University 1, has written an ‘official complain’ to Editor E alleging that a paper he was invited to review employs without permission a method that is the ‘background intellectual property’ (BIP) of University 1. He believes the paper should not be published. Dr R asserts that he created the BIP prior to its use in several research projects at University 1, and notes that Dr A,… - CaseCase Closed
Change in author’s name after publication
An original work was published in our journal in September 2010. The article had five authors. Now, in February 2013, the third author is requesting an alteration in his/her name. The original name published was SFHS. The request is to change the name to SFH, both on the journal's website and Medline. No valid reason could be provided by the author for this change in name. The last name… - CaseOn-going
Previous publication cannot be verified
Publisher A received a concern suggesting that a coauthored paper published in one of their journals had previously been published by the complainant in an industry in-house journal (now disbanded). All three individuals had worked for the company which sponsored the in-house journal. The publisher asked for a contact at the company so that they could request information about their publication… - Case
Potentially unethical publication
A new Editor was appointed to a society journal in a minority medical specialty. An officer of the society immediately handed him an anonymous letter from a reader of the journal complaining that an article recently published was unethical. The Editor is a personal friend both of the previous editor who accepted the paper, and the author of the paper. The paper is by a single author who gives n… - CaseOn-going
Undeclared author conflict of interest
A journal published a study related to a pilot programme run by an online mental health support resource which, at the time of publication, had a for-profit spinoff. At the time of the publication, this resource would share “anonymised” user data with the spinoff to create and market customer service software. Although this practice of sharing data has since been stopped, the authors of the man… - CaseCase Closed
Paper submitted for publication without consent or knowledge of co-authors
…article to the ‘correct’ journal (journal B) by co-author A. LCO agreed to the amicable proposal of the LO of institute Y, and sent the publisher a statement on 21 December 2012 in which he disagreed that the case is merely an authorship dispute, but states that the foremost concern is the declaration that the corresponding author signed with research institute X which in his eyes is “wider than… - CaseOn-going
Unresponsive authors delaying publication
The journal received a submission which proceeded through peer review and was recommended for publication. The authors responded to the revision letter, providing a detailed itemised list of changes and revised their manuscript accordingly. The revised manuscript was subsequently accepted for publication. The normal process for articles in this journal is that when papers are accepted a… - CaseOn-going
Deceased author and author delaying publication
The journal accepted a manuscript for publication with two authors. One of the authors died before signing the copyright. This manuscript is now ready for galley proof approval from the surviving author. Proofs were sent to the surviving author and the author who died as normal because the production editor assigned to this manuscript did not know that one of the authors had died. After… - CaseCase Closed
How to deal with obvious but disclosed conflict of interest
…employees? If we ask that some authors be removed, does that create additional conflicts (eg failure to comply with authorship policies and may not overcome the COI if the remaining authors do not alter the paper)? … - CaseCase Closed
Dispute between two authors
A manuscript was submitted by author A to our journal. The content of the paper was controversial. We sent this manuscript for peer review by two clinical reviewers. We wrote back to author A requesting major revisions to address the concerns and issues raised by the reviewers. A revised paper was submitted and accepted for publication. Because the article was controversial, mini-comment… - CaseOn-going
Salami slicing/duplicate publication
An article with four authors was published in journal A. The same article with a slight change in the title and one additional author, was published three months later in journal B. The authors had submitted the article to both journals at the same time. The number of study subjects in the two articles were the same, with a very slight difference in the wordings of the objective o…