- Case
Undeclared conflict of interest
Several years after a case series was published, a journalist with serious allegations of research misconduct contacted the editor. These allegations were that: - Ethics approval had not been obtained, contrary to a statement in the paper; and that the reported study was completed under the cover of ethics approval granted to a different study - Contrary to a statement in the paper that the par… - Case
CV study: was ethics approval and consent required?
A submitted paper detailing the negative experiences of overseas doctors applying for a training post in a district general hospital was poorly presented and scientifically weak, but on a topic of great interest and importance. The study consisted of an analysis of the CVs of the applicants and an analysis of responses to questionnaires sent to them with their rejection letters. Over a third of… - Case
Wholesale plagiarism
A review article was submitted by three authors from three separate institutions to Journal A. It was sent out to two referees. One of the referees noticed an apparent similarity with a review published a year earlier in Journal B, but written by two completely different authors. An electronic copy of the published article from Journal B's website indicated that the whole of the submitted manus… - Case
The disappearing authors
Some time after a single authored research article was published a journal received a letter pointing out that the same article had been rejected by another journal because of unresolved authorship and acknowledgement issues. At that time the paper had 12 authors. The correspondent said that the single author had a patent application related to the topic of the paper. This was declared as a com… - Case
Authorship dispute
A paper submitted to an international medical journal was reviewed externally and the authors were subsequently invited to submit a revised version. The initial submission included authors from two different research institutions and one author from a corporate sponsor. The initial submission was accompanied by an appropriate description of the individual authors’ contributions, a negative conf… - Case
Going public on potential fraud
A research article published some time ago detailed an invasive test. The authors obtained informed consent from the patients, but did not seek ethics committee approval. Subsequently, the journal published correspondence from X, detailing the article’s problems. X and others had attempted to replicate the study and had failed to achieve the accuracy levels as described. X stated that this was… - 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
“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
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
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
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
Possibly unethical report on the safety and efficacy of a minor operation
Two companion papers from a single author, a paediatric surgeon working in a secondary/tertiary unit, were received. He had performed the same minor operation on 420 babies and 60 children over two years. His paper purported to report safety and efficacy. From the hanging committee’s own knowledge, and after checking with a surgical board member, a paediatric surgeon might be expected to do fou… - Case
Contacting Research Ethics Committees with concerns over studies
A paper was submitted, detailing a small overseas trial of a drug treatment of a politically controversial disease. The treatment was moderately toxic. The paper was seen by two referees (A and B), who had considerable criticisms of the methodology used. Comments were also received from C, who was invited to review but refused, because s/he did not want his/her name known to the authors under t… - Case
An unethical ethics committee?
A paper was submitted, detailing a double blind placebo controlled food challenge to a group of children. The reviewer considered the study unethical because he was concerned consent could not have been properly informed. He believed there was a very small risk of anaphylaxis—even death—and had this been explained to the parents, they would not have consented. The editor considered that the rev… - Case
Consent from relatives for genetic tests
A paper described a problem of two women who wanted their fetuses to be tested for a genetic condition, but where in both cases their partners had refused to give consent. Should the journal publish such a paper without obtaining consent from the partners? The editors think not, but the authors are unconvinced. … _ It would be impossible to completely anonymise the case even if mention was… - Case
Duplicate publication
Journal A received a letter from a reader claiming that a figure in a paper published in the journal had appeared in various guises in three other learned publications over the course of 12 years. The origin of the figure was disputed and the reader believed the original source was not the authors. The authors of the paper in Journal A were asked to comment. They refuted the claim. The primary… - Case
New surgical technique without evidence of either ethics committee approval or patient consent
A study was submitted in which the authors describe a new surgical technique, which includes radiofrequency coagulation, to treat complete prolapse of the rectum. They say in their paper that: “in the treatment of complete rectal prolapse, no operation stands out in comparison to the others.” The authors do not seem to have received either ethics committee approval or consent from the patients.… - Case
Randomised controlled trial without ethics committee approval
A paper reported a randomised controlled trial relating to a common investigational procedure. There are two different postural positions into which a patient may be put while the procedure is carried out, and individual operators may have a preference for one or the other, but both are in routine use. The purpose of the randomised controlled trial was to find out whether the procedure is techn… - Case
Anonymous case presentations (without patient consent) on a specialist society website
A specialist society wishes to post “case of the month” on the society website. The society is not proposing to obtain patient consent from all patients, but will anonymise the case reports instead. It has been suggested a case might be anonymised by changing details including age, occupation, or gender. It has also suggested that there is often much to learn from patients who have died, from w… - Case
Publication of dead patient’s name at the request of the family
An author requested advice about reporting unusual ocular manifestations of a patient who died from a fatal injury. The author sought the permission of the family to report the case, but they also requested that the patient’s name be added to the report in her memory. The author has proposed to add the following in the acknowledgement section: “The authors are grateful to the family of forename…