- Case
No ethics approval or informed consent?
…omission of an expensive drug in a third world scenario could lead to no change in results. There are over a dozen articles indicating the contrary. The author seemed to base his hypothesis on one article in the literature. Following the investigation, the article has been withdrawn by the author. Is there any moral responsibility of the editorial team to report the matter further and, if so, what… - Case
A survey of doctors’ opinions, with no IRB approval or written consent
…How fair do you think this method of evaluation is to foreign medical graduates? What would be your most ideal method for evaluation of foreign medical graduates? Why did you immigrate?' There was no IRB approval for this study and no mention of written informed consent. When asked to clarify ethical issues, the author stated: “No protocol was prewritten, as the question of what and who… - 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?… - Case
A case with no independent institution to investigate
…alerting them to the submission. As far as we can tell, author A received this email in response to both submissions. However, we have had no correspondence directly from author A regarding either article. We have contacted author B for an explanation of the concerns raised by author A, which we have been told we will receive shortly. The concerns raised by author A are serious enough to warrant… - Case
Retraction request after university investigation found no evidence of fraud
Dr X claimed to have found fabrication and falsification of data in an article submitted for publication by Dr Y. Dr Y’s university investigated and found no evidence of fraud but a genuine error in the figure. Dr X provided more information and a further investigation was initiated. It again dismissed the complaint as unfounded. The paper was then published. Dr X is now asking the journal for… - Case
No ethics committee approval of a study
Our journal received a manuscript describing a comparison of two different techniques for patients in the intensive care unit. There was no information on ethics committee approval and so we asked the authors if approval was obtained. They replied that they had not applied for ethics committee approval “as it was a clinical comparison of two existing methods, none of them experimental. All… - Case
Massaging the impact factor
The editor in chief of a journal started insisting that authors include references from the journal in their articles. S/he provided examples of acceptance letters from several other journals in the field, which insist that their authors do this, as evidence that it is standard and acceptable practice. The authors do not agree and think this is an unethical attempt to massage the impact factor.… - Case
Bizarre treatment of viral disease overseas
A journal received an account by email from outside Britain of how 14 patients infected with a potentially lethal virus had been treated with an unusual non-pharmacological treatment. The treatment seemed bizarre, and furthermore, there was no mention of approval by an ethics committee or of informed consent. The author was twice emailed to ask if he had ethics committee approval and if he had… - Case
Studies where there is no research ethics committee, or where committees disagree as to the need for approval
The editor of this journal, in common with other journals, requires that, where appropriate, studies published should have been approved by the relevant ethics committee. In some cases researchers have reported to the editor that they have found no committee willing to accept competence, or that different committees are taking different lines on which studies require approval. As an… - News
COPE Forum agenda and materials: 4 March 2014 meeting
The next COPE Forum meeting is being held on Tuesday 4 March 2014, 3–5pm (GMT). The COPE Forum will be held virtually via webinar. Download the agenda and materials here (PDF, 695kb). The invitation to join the webinar is below. We can accommodate up to 100 attendees, so please register quickly if you wish… - Case
The perfect study but no investigational drug
A paper was submitted that described the use of a non-licensed investigational drug. One of the paper’s reviewers drew attention to the fact that none of the investigators in the study had been supplied with the drug since 1992/3. The drug is produced exclusively by one manufacturer who has operated an extremely restrictive policy regarding availability of the compound. I contacted the clinical… - Case
Dubious surgery
A paper was submitted, describing surgery on the sexual organs of four women. The paper was poorly written and hard to follow, but it seems that this surgery was undertaken primarily because of the unsatisfactory sexual experiences of the women’s partners. There was no mention of ethics committee approval or of the women having given consent, not only for the surgery but also for taking part… - Research
No study’s perfect: a cross-disciplinary analysis of published errata 2011
Mistakes in research are inevitable, and publishing corrections is vital for the integrity of the literature. These errata rarely require a retraction, and are therefore considered a lesser concern. This perception might be wrong, however, because the actual prevalence, nature and impact of errors across disciplines are unknown. Indeed, while several large studies have looked at retractions, ex… - Case
Ethical approval for a study
We had a presubmission enquiry from a group regarding a paper reporting what seemed to be an uncontrolled trial in infertile women who were given soft tissue physical therapy. The authors wanted to know if we would be interested in their paper; if it was a problem that the trial had not been registered (because, they claimed, it was not a trial as no control group was used); and if it was…