- Case
Is it duplicate publication when the first study is referenced in the second paper?
_ It was surprising that the editor and/or reviewer(s) didn’t pick up on the fact that the reference was in the paper. But the onus is on the author to send in any papers that may have potential overlap with a submitted paper. _ This case was an example of poor behaviour on the authors’ part. _ The second paper sounded like the same study, or perhaps a subset of the same study. It was not… - Case
Order of authors changing between a submitted manuscript and a published paper
A paper was submitted to an online journal with the order of authors A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. After review, the manuscript was accepted for publication, subject to the authors making some minor changes. While making the formatting changes, the submitting author changed the order of the authors to B, A, C, D, E, F, G. This change was not noticed by the editors and the manuscript was published… - Case
Duplicate publication
…judge whether the figures were the same or not, he should submit the data to two independent reviewers. _ The reader who asserts that the figure is his should be asked whether he wants his name to be released to the authors.… - Case
Declaration of contributorship
An online post-publication literature evaluation service, aiming to highlight the best articles in medicine, received an evaluation of an article whose authors were based at the same institution as the evaluator. The editor asked the contributor if he/she had any involvement in the study and received the following response: “I am based at the university but did not participate in the design of… - CaseCase Closed
Author admits failure to credit other authors
An author submitted a manuscript and stated that he was the sole author. The manuscript received a favourable peer review and eventually was accepted. Some time after the article was published, a co-author told the author to contact the journal to correct the author list. The author of record (AOR) did this and supplied co-author names to the journal. The editor worked with the author… - CaseOn-going
Undeclared author conflict of interest
…editors of the journal promptly conducted a post-publication editorial review of the paper and concluded that the analysis itself was done properly and that the conclusions were sound. COPE guidance was followed. With the permission of the reader who had contacted them with concerns, the journal presented the corresponding author with the full complaint and asked them to respond promptly.… - CaseCase Closed
Disagreement between authors and sponsor
…consulted, and they felt that if the journal editors were satisfied with the authors' responses and the relevant changes to the manuscript, then they did not see any reason not to publish the paper. They also advised that our society's board of directors should review the situation and recommended that the case be submitted to COPE, a recommendation endorsed by the society's board. The company… - Seminars and webinars
European Seminar 2019: Analysis of retractions, initiators and reasons for retractions
…guidelines View the presentations given by Catriona Fennell and Howard Browman, who were also speakers at this session on retractions: a publisher's perspective on retractions a review of the updated - Case
The case of a physician in private practice offering an experimental intervention
A physician in private practice wrote to our journal asking if we were interested in a paper discussing his experience of offering a novel intravenous therapy to his patients. He hoped we wouldn’t discriminate against him for being an author in private practice. He had given this therapy to nine patients with a variety of acute and chronic illnesses, including himself. The physician says that a… - Case
Lack of ethics committee approval?
An editor received a paper and requested details of ethical approval from the authors. The authors replied that they had approached the ethics committee about carrying out a more extensive study than the one submitted, for which ethical approval was denied or possibly thought unnecessary - the authors’ English isn’t clear in their responses. Before the start of the more extensive study, the aut… - Case
Sloppiness or deception?
…because all of the controls produced live births and were pregnant. The statement is thus misleading. Journal A was alerted to the problem by an editor from Journal B, which had accepted, but not published, a paper from the same authors with the same design. Their reviewers had identified the problem, and the authors were asked to change their wording. The editorial team of Journal A felt that the… - Case
Referee with a conflict of interest
A paper was received by Journal A in August and sent to Dr X for comment. Dr X advised that the paper was not original in the light of a publication by his own research group earlier in the year in another journal, and that furthermore, this study contained over twice as many patients as the paper the journal had sent to him to referee. The journal decided to reject the paper on the strength of… - Case
No ethics committee approval or informed consent
A study was submitted that required the active participation of nearly 500 patients from a local hospital. The paper made no mention of ethics committee approval or informed consent by the patients, and an enquiry revealed that the authors had not obtained these. The chief executive at the hospital was alerted. Have the editors done the right thing? … If the data came from an audit/q… - Case
The hazardous drug used in an unlicensed way
The author (a clinician) sent in a case series, involving two patients. Both patients presented with severe pain, which was resistant to strong analgesics. The author then gave them a drug with potentially very serious sideeffects, including a small risk of disability or death. This drug is only licensed for a small number of indications. Neither of these two patients met the clinical criteria… - Case
Invasive intervention without consent
A study was submitted on the safety and feasibility of treating patients with acute stroke with an invasive procedure that would cause them considerable discomfort. The editor did not want to publish the study because it had negative results, did not include a power calculation, and was almost certainly too small to detect a clinically useful difference. The study had obtained local ethics comm… - Case
Failing to get consent from an ethics committee
This case was described to me by an author who is about to submit a paper. He has discovered that a member of his team has produced a lot of fraudulent data for other studies, and has forged consent from ethics committees. This researcher has been reported to the GMC and his case is pending. The problem with the paper about to be submitted to us is that the fraudulent researcher falsely claime… - CaseCase Closed
Professional misconduct of one author
…this. A change at this stage would require a correction notice but the author byline would stay the same; the only option would be to say the status of the author has changed from authorship to acknowledgement, as the author participated substantially before. If the paper has not finished the peer review process, the author byline itself might be correctable but the explanation would… - CaseOn-going
Image duplication
The editor received an allegation of image falsification from a whistleblower relating to two papers published more than ten years previously (under the previous editor and publisher). A senior editor reviewed the allegations according to COPE guidelines, and decided there was evidence of image duplication. The allegations were then put to the author who was unable to supply the original data… - CaseCase Closed
Author disagreement blocks submission
A paper was submitted to a medical journal reporting original research on human subjects. Two corresponding authors, author A (first in authors’ list) and author B (last in the list) were listed. The paper was sent to external referees but while it was under review, the editor received an email from author A stating that s/he had not read the paper, was not aware of the submission and did not… - CaseCase Closed
Possible omission of information essential for conclusions in a research paper
…earlier and should have disclosed this information during the review process of their 2013 paper. In our initial response in July 2014 to the letter of concern, we asked the researcher who sent us the letter of concern to send us a detailed rapid response to the 2013 paper, which we could publish. We have also asked advice of our statistical advisor who reviewed the 2013 paper, and he…