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Showing 121–140 of 191 results
  • 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

    Dispute among authors

    Our journal has received a paper describing a study that originated as more than one trial in more than one country, with collaboration by researchers in another country. The DSMB considered and agreed a proposal to combine the trials. It took many months to finally submit the manuscript to the journal after the end of trial. The delay in submission was caused b…
  • 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…
  • Case

    Allegation of fraud and insider trading

    A manuscript was submitted to our journal describing a clinical trial funded by a commercial sponsor with almost all authors being either employees or having financial ties to the company. Although generally favourable, during the extensive peer review process several reviewers raised concerns about the data being “too good to be true”. The editors sought additional statistical adv…
  • Case

    Potential case of plagiarism

    One of the referees of our journal has brought to our attention a potential case of plagiarism. The referee feels that the a manuscript submitted to our journal, representing a retrospective study of a cohort of patients with a particular condition, plagiarises an article published in another journal in 2003. The authors are from an institute in a middle-eastern country. The submi…
  • Case

    Possible case of fraud

    A paper was submitted to us describing an RCT carried out in a Far Eastern hospital. Soon after the manuscript had been sent out for review, one of the reviewers sent a letter alerting us to a “possible case of fraud”. The reviewer in question appears to have compared notes with another investigator in his institute, and together they realised that the same group had submitted two…
  • Case

    An investigation into results that were “almost too good to be true”

    A general medical journal received an RCT from a seldom-published, single-author, in an eastern European country. The results were striking, with an effect size that surpassed that of established medications for this condition, so the manuscript was sent for peer review. One reviewer commented that the results were “so highly statistically significant it is almost too good to be tr…
  • Case

    Author trap/fabrication detection

    This is how I dealt with an author who submitted a fabricated manuscript to my journal. A junior doctor submitted a paper about the use of a drug in a particular condition. Three expert reviewers were sure that the author did not undertake the claimed study, emphasising that the drug was not available in our country (Middle Eastern country) and it had not been registered for clinical use…
  • Case

    Controversy regarding ownership of a device

    A paper was submitted which described the outcomes of a clinical trial evaluating a particular device. The device was claimed to represent a placebo version of an active device intervention. The paper was reviewed fairly critically and one reviewer pointed out that from the reference list it did not seem that the authors had developed this type of placebo device, while the title of their paper…
  • Case

    Non-compliance of author with request for information

    In April 2007, an original scientific article was published on line (ahead of print—it is now published in print, September 2007). In July 2007, the editors received the following request from a scientist who read this article: "Since I am interested in this subject and I already work with it, I need to know some technical information from the authors. I have called the group five times and wro…
  • Case

    An appropriate response to concerns of research validity

    A paper describing a novel technique was submitted. Three out of four external reviewers felt that the results could not be true. The manufacturers of the tool used in the technique provided evidence to support the reviewers’ claims that the results were not feasible. The editor wrote to the authors asking them to explain their results. The authors replied saying that they were unable to…
  • Case

    Authorship issue

    The editors of a scientific journal were sent a letter of complaint from Drs A and B who noticed that a paper had been published online ahead of the print edition authored by Dr C. Their primary complaint was that they were not included in the authorship and should have been. Other points made in their (rather confusing letters) were that: they had contributed to the paper in the sense t…
  • Case

    Plagiarism case

    A letter was sent to the editor indicating that three articles (one of them in the editor’s journal) on identical subjects had been published in the same year (2006) by the same authors, accusing the first author of all three articles of stealing data from and plagiarising a previously published article from the academic institution where the first author previously worked. The letter, sent by…
  • Case

    Duplicate publication?

    The editors of this journal check all articles against Medline for possible redundant publications. Two very similar articles from an author were retrieved when the name of the author was searched. The titles were very similar, except for the name of the disease. The abstracts had almost 50% identical wording. The two articles were not related to the article submitted to the editors, but as the…
  • Case

    Is retraction justified because of an author dispute over permission to use data?

    Author X recently published a paper in Journal Y and has asked for the paper to be retracted. The reason given is that part of the data presented in the paper was published without the permission of a colleague, who is not listed as an author of the paper (and probably does not qualify for full authorship). This colleague is now seeking to publish the data in another journal and it is implied t…
  • Case

    A case of scientific misconduct?

    We had a paper submitted reporting results of a randomized trial. The trial seemed to look at immune responses in lung fluid in participants receiving either a particular vaccine or placebo. We got a copy of the trial protocol before going to peer review as per our normal editorial policy, and made sure the trial was registered. One reviewer pointed out major discrepancies (principally i…
  • Case

    Consideration of publishing raw data

    Our journal has received a submission regarding clinical trial results. The authors wish to include the “raw data” as an appendix to the manuscript. The study was completed several years ago and was controversial at the time. The authors wish to publish the raw data to allow the public to view the findings and make their own decisions about the trial. We do not know the best way to handle this…
  • Case

    Suspected systematic data fabrication

    The editor received correspondence from a third party suggesting that a paper published in 2005 in the journal by four co-authors contained suspect data. The suspicion was based on the observation that in three separate figures all error bars were identical. Indeed, the third party subjected 32 publications from the same group of authors to independent statistical appraisal and concluded that 2…
  • Case

    Possible fabricated data: a conspiracy of silence?

    I became involved in this issue after reports from doctors in a developing country that three papers in a systematic review published by my company may have been fabricated. The papers in question had co-authors in two other countries and so I contacted them. One co-author replied that he had concerns, but as none of the studies was conducted in his country, he had no data. He sai…
  • Case

    Ethics approval for audit 3

    In this case, an international organisation wished to study the use of various regimens for medical termination of pregnancy in a developing world setting where termination of pregnancy is not supported by the state. They have performed an audit and have obtained data which will be of considerable value in other similar settings around the world. However, they are not willing to state the ident…

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