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 published results in the second paper closely matched those of the first. The paper also seemed to have been copied entirely from the first paper, including the ethics committee approval. The editors wrote to N et al. asking for an explanation, evidence of the raw data, and copy of the ethics committee approval. The time line of ethical approval, submission, and publication meant that it would have been difficult to have recruited for, and completed, an eight week treatment study. N responded, stating that ethical approval was not required even though it was a double blind, placebo controlled study in children, and so had not been sought. The author also claimed that the lack of response from the ethics committee was synonymous with approval. The author then claimed to have sought ethical approval retrospectively, and a letter from the ethics committee was sent to the editors. When the editors attempted to contact this committee they were passed onto another ethics committee in a different area. The letter was sent to the author’s institution head. Unsigned letters and emails, purporting to be from the co-authors’ head of institution, were sent to the journal, and the author supplied an Excel spreadsheet detailing data from just 15 patients. A review of the author’s publication history revealed that s/he had changed “routes” over the past 5-6 years, publishing only fairly brief reports.
- The letter from the ethics committee chairman might have been fabricated. - A spreadsheet on 15 patients is unacceptable; the original data should definitely be available for such recent research. - The editors should write directly to both the current and previous institution heads. - The editors should also consider contacting the author’s regulatory body. - The journal should also write to the co-authors’ head of institution as they seemed to have taken complimentary authorship. - The journal should retract the article if it felt that there was sufficient evidence to suggest fraud; but if not, it should certainly publish a notice of concern.