The associate editor of journal X identified author Y on a submission paper as someone who had lost their license to practice due to malpractice. As part of the settlement, author Y had agreed to refrain from providing services to patients. Author Y now resides on a different continent, and the study presented in the submission was apparently carried out in in this continent. There is no mention in the conflict of interest statement regarding the loss of license.
The role of author Y in the paper is not clear. The editor was planning to ask this after peer review was completed.
Question(s) for the COPE Forum
• Should loss of a licence to practice in one country be declared as part of a conflict of interest statement?
• Does loss of licence to practice in one country impact a researcher’s ability to carry out clinical research in other countries?
• Should the loss of license have been declared to the ethics committee that approved the study?
The Forum questioned the role of the author in this paper—how involved was the author in this study? The Forum suggested that the editor needs to establish this first. The editor can ask for a contributorship statement from the authors, detailing the contribution of each author to the study and paper. Malpractice can be for very specific areas and if this study is in an unrelated field, it may not impact on this paper.
The Forum agreed that the author should have declared his loss of license to the ethics committee that approved the study. This issue should have been raised at this level initially. The journal could consider contacting the ethics committee to see if this happened.