Correction of the literature, corrigenda & errata

A reader, Dr A, wrote to the editors explaining a number of concerns she had with some of the figures in a paper published in the journal. The editors sought the advice of an associate editor with more expertise in the subspecialty of the paper. The associate editor concurred with Dr A’s opinion of the paper and the authors were invited to respond. After some back and forth correspondence, the authors agreed with the editors that an erratum should be published containing the revised figures.

Out of courtesy, the erratum was sent to Dr A, who replied stating that she did not feel the erratum to be adequate and voicing more concerns about the modified figures. After further lengthy back and forth discussion with the authors and Dr A, the editors decided that the erratum should first be published and that Dr A should write a formal letter for publication in the journal expressing her concerns about the paper, with the authors then being given the right of reply to this letter.

Dr A duly wrote a letter but the nature of the concerns she raised has led the editors to conclude that this approach might never resolve the matter, and that the issue should best be handled by correspondence directly between Dr A and authors. The editors have therefore decided that the matter should be formally closed in public by publishing the erratum, and that any subsequent discussion should be handled privately between Dr A and the authors. The erratum has not yet been published.

Question(s) for the COPE Forum
• Have the editors handled the situation reasonably?
• Could the editors have handled it differently?
• How might the journal prepare for dealing with similar situations in the future?
 

A reader emailed a society, which forwarded the message to the journal office, noting that he can read the name of a patient in a figure in a published letter to the editor. The letter was published online 3 months earlier and had just appeared in print; it was the print version the reader saw. The reader asked if the patient's name could be removed.

The journal’s author instructions already stated that no identifying patient information should be included. At all stages following submission (journal office review of initial submission, publisher production of processed manuscript, copyeditor review, and author review of proof), the patient’s name was not noticed.

Within 2 days of the reader’s email, the publisher had replaced the figure with a version that did not include the patient’s name. It was agreed that an erratum would not be issued so as not to draw attention to the matter.

Both the journal office and publisher have since instituted new procedures in reviewing figures to detect any patient information. Additionally, new text has been added to the author instructions: “Patient’s identity must be removed in all figures (ie, x-rays, MRIs, charts, photographs, etc). Informed written consent is required from any potentially identifiable patient or legal representative, and should be presented in either the methods section or the acknowledgements”.

The publisher and its legal counsel also created a patient consent form (the rural clinic in another country where the patient was treated did not have one) and we able to contact the author who asked her patient to sign the form, post-publication. The patient agreed and signed the form, and the matter is now closed.

Questions for the COPE Forum
(1) Were we right in deciding not to issue an erratum? Is there any other text that you would recommend adding to the author instructions?

A paper was published in July 2012. The author was told by their institution that one of the figures had to be replaced, in the interests of national security. Failure to do this would result in imprisonment. The editor checked with one of his reviewers who said that replacing the figure will not affect the results or conclusions of the paper.

So, can we replace the published version directly in order to avoid further dissemination of this figure or should we republish this paper? Or should we withdraw the paper? Is it possible to block the paper to avoid further dissemination and then republish this paper with the new figure?

In March 2012, our journal published a posthumous excerpt of a book by a prestigious scholar, who had died before completing the book. We chose to publish because the unfinished book represented the scholar's life work, and would not find another publication venue. The excerpt included a number of large figures, which we also published.

At our publisher, we had a new production team, and they had a very difficult time getting the issue out, but there were an exceptional number of errors introduced to the posthumous excerpt during the layout process. (Our upload to the publisher was free of errors, and we have documentation to establish that this was the case. It appears that a considerable amount of information was stripped from the file during our file export process. We had used the publisher's software to do the upload, and followed their procedures throughout the production process. We forwarded documentation establishing the fact that our upload was clean to our production editor.)

We received the first set of proofs and made all corrections. At that time, because of the extensive number of changes required, we requested that we have the opportunity to review a second and third proof. When we received the second proof of the excerpt, some corrections had been made, but other, new errors appeared. We made all of the required corrections and forwarded them to our publisher's production editor. The production editor acknowledged receipt of the corrections to the second proof. When we repeated our request to see a third proof, the publication editor assured us that all corrections would be made before publication.

When the excerpt was published, some corrections appeared, but new errors were added to the earlier problems. Figures were out of order. Some captions were incomplete, others were incorrect. Paragraphs of text were scrambled and appeared as gibberish. We contacted our publication editor immediately, and requested that we be allowed to correct the article, and have the corrected version appear in the electronic version. Our publisher said that it was impossible to change the electronic version (?!).

Since that time, we have found a new publisher, in part because of the quality control problems we experienced with our original publisher. Now we need to publish an erratum for the excerpt, which will go on for a number of pages. Since our intention was to honour a deceased colleague, would it be appropriate to 'republish' the entire excerpt free of error, so it can appear in the form the author originally intended? My board feels that the extent version of the excerpt is an insult to the author and her family (who kindly edited and prepared the excerpt for publication). The excerpt was originally presented as part of the editorial (non-peer reviewed) content of our publication.

The editor-in-chief received an email from author A regarding a recently published corrigendum by authors BCD, one of whom (author C) is a member of the journal’s editorial board. In this email, author A claimed that the corrigendum, which corrected some errors in an earlier article by BCD, was based on illicit use of privileged information, obtained by two of the authors (B and D) who were reviewers on two different versions of a critique submitted by author A, which pointed out these errors. In the email, author A requested that the corrigendum be retracted and that the journal “publish an editorial note that sets the record straight”.

The sequence of events was as follows. Author A’s critique was rejected by the handling editor, based in part on negative reviews and in part on the grounds that it was far too long and contained redundant and unnecessary material. One reviewer (B) invited a revised version. A second round of review led to the suggestion by reviewer D, that BCD publish an erratum acknowledging the errors uncovered by the submission, together with a further comment from author A.  The handling editor in turn proposed that author A and authors BCD submit a joint manuscript acknowledging the errors and other points. Author A refused, on the basis that the information that authors BCD obtained was privileged, and therefore could not be appropriated. Author A informed the editor that the critique had now been submitted to another journal.

Authors BCD then proposed submitting a corrigendum, but the handling editor informed authors BCD of author A’s objection along with the admonition that authors BCD’s “only option is to wait for the critique to appear in print and publish a response to that”.

About 1 year later, authors BCD submitted the corrigendum, suggesting that sufficient time had elapsed to allow author A to publish the critique, and that “This seemed to us to balance the interests of author A against the ethical requirement to promptly correct errors that we are aware of in our published paper”. The original handling editor had since left the journal but recommended publication, and the recommendation was accepted by the editor-in-chief. 

Authors BCD’s corrigendum acknowledged that the errors were “called to our attention” by author A. When notified of author A’s email complaint, authors BCD proposed to submit a second corrigendum to supersede the first one, and would cite author A’s critique, which had now appeared in another journal. This proposal was rejected by author A on the grounds that authors BCD had appropriated author A’s ideas.

There are several complications. 

1. Author A’s manuscript was a direct critique of authors BCD’s earlier article, but author A did not consult with authors BCD before submitting it.  However, author A nominated author B as a potential referee.

2. Authors BCD did not inform author A that, despite authors A’s objection, they later submitted the corrigendum, nor did the handling editor at the time inform author A that the corrigendum had been submitted and later that it had been accepted.

3. Although author A informed the handling editor that the critique had been submitted elsewhere, author A did not apprise the editor of its progress.

4. Authors BCD did consult with the editors of the journal at each step.

Questions: 

• What is the appropriate balance between two conflicting ethical principles: the need for authors BCD to correct an error in their work versus the need to maintain the confidentiality of privileged information?
• Is retraction of the corrigendum warranted?
• Is authors BCD’s proposal of a second corrigendum a reasonable solution? 
• Are there other actions that should be taken?