2006
Search results
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Competing interests question
06-36 An online post-publication literature evaluation service aiming to highlight the best papers in medicine, received an evaluation of a basic science study funded by an NIHM grant. The evaluator declared in his/her competing ...
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Ethical approval for a study
06-35 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 ...
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Literature evaluation service and supplements
06-34 An online post-publication literature evaluation service aiming to highlight the best articles in medicine has received evaluation of articles published in supplement issues of journals. Given that many supplements are funded by ...
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Is retraction justified because of an author dispute over permission to use data?
06-33 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 ...
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Suspected plagiarism
06-32 This is regarding a case of suspected plagiarism in our journal. I as editor have received a manuscript which was published by me in our January 2006 issue and on subsequent follow up after availability of plagiarism detection ...
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A case of scientific misconduct?
06-31 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 ...
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Duplicate submission
06-29 An article was submitted simultaneously to our journal and another journal (who is a member of COPE) on the same date. Both journals received letters saying that the article had not been submitted to another journal. When they ...
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Conflict of interest
06-30 After peer-review, a general medical journal published a household survey of violence following a coup against the country’s elected President. The survey revealed high levels of violence and human rights abuses, only a small ...
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Possible duplicate publication
06-28 An article by a Far Eastern group was published in our journal in November 2005. We were later alerted by an interested reader that the same article, slightly changed, was published in an American journal. I contacted the American ...
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Possible plagiarism
06-27 A Middle Eastern author submitted four papers on different subjects at around the same time (two single author, two with other authors). During in-house assessment, it was noted that two of the papers were very similar to ...
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Possible breach of confidentiality by a reviewer
06-26 One of the figures in an article under review was said by the authors to appear in a presentation given at a conference while the paper was still under review and from this identified the reviewer and accused this person of abusing ...
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Consideration of publishing raw data
06-25 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 ...
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Potential plagiarism
06-24 In 2003, Journal A published an original article. In 2006, the editor received a complaint of plagiarism relating to a case report published by Journal B in 2000. ...
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Post-publication evaluation and manufacturer information
06-23 An online post-publication literature evaluation service, aiming to highlight the best papers in medicine, received an evaluation of a cost effectiveness study assessing a new therapy. The evaluator quoted estimated amounts of cost ...
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Repetitive duplicate submission to multiple journals and redundant publication
06-22 This case came to light when the editors of two journals (J1 and J2) established that the same manuscript (MsA) had been submitted to both journals simultaneously. On bringing this information to the attention of the author, ...
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Suspected systematic data fabrication
06-21 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 ...
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Duplicate publication
06-20 Author X contacted the editor of Journal A to enquire whether the journal would be interested in a review of a new concept in the treatment of a disease, written by author X and two co-authors. Author X said that his co-authors had ...
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A case of parallel publication?
06-19 Paper A appeared in a foreign language journal, together with an English abstract. Paper B was submitted to us, and one of our referees alerted us to the similar content. ...
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Possible fabricated data: a conspiracy of silence?
06-18 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. ...
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Ethics approval for audit 2
06-16 A group in a developed country performed an audit of pregnancy and its outcome in a group of 250 women with congenital heart disease. There were four maternal deaths of women in the series. It was decided to write up the audit. The ...
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Ethics approval for audit 3
06-17 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 ...
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Ethics approval for audit 1
06-15 A group in a developing country decided to do a survey of maternal mortality in relation to the available local facilities in the various regions of their country. They set up a small committee to look at the incidence and causes. ...
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Request for a retraction of a retraction
06-14 In October 2000, a journal published a retraction of a February 2000 publication of a research paper. In the same issue the dean of the corresponding author’s medical school reported the findings of an investigational committee ...
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Institutionalised policy of gift authorship?
06-13 A manuscript was submitted to our journal. After review we asked for revision. At this time we sent a formatting checklist which includes criteria for authorship. Two authors were removed in the resubmission. Eventually the ...
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Authorship dispute
06-12 The paper in question describes a collaborative study of several datasets (not all previously published). A putative referee was asked to review the paper and declined. However, this led to a written complaint asserting that (s)he ...
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Misuse of post-publication literature evaluation service
06-11 An online post-publication literature evaluation service that publishes only positive reviews, aiming to highlight the best papers in medicine, received an evaluation of a paper that had been published in a journal for which the ...
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A case of plagiarism
06-10 A paper with five authors was submitted from a university hospital in a Middle-Eastern country. One of the reviewers complained that it extensively plagiarised one of his own publications. Examination showed that about 30% of the ...
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Dual submission
06-09 Paper 1 was submitted to journal A. The paper dealt with monitoring of a chemical element in various occupations in a range of workplaces. Samples were taken from the workplace air and bodily fluids of the workers, and conclusions ...
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Ethical approval and parental consent
06-08 A journal received a paper from a single author, attributed to a UK institution, in which 10 children were operated on using two techniques, each child having one technique to one side and one to the other side, at the same ...
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Author’s name removed from submitted article
06-07 A week after receiving a paper on a study for consideration for publication, the Editor received an email from person X claiming to have been the principal investigator of the study for the previous five years, up until he recently ...
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Ethical approval for retrospective study
06-06 A paper reported the clinical outcomes of patients suffering from a neglected disease before and after a change in the national treatment policy which raised the threshold of one laboratory parameter before a more toxic, but more ...
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Problem with figures
06-05 (1) An article was published after peer review. Shortly after online publication we received a message from a reader (an academic who works in the same field as the authors) notifying us of a major concern with one of the figures ...
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Author dispute over need for retraction
06-04 The authors of a paper are in disagreement over whether the paper should be retracted. One group of authors (group 1) wishes to publish a correction, and another group (group 2) feel that is inadequate, and the paper should be ...
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Accusation of theft of a model
06-03 During refereeing of an article, one of the referees made an accusation of theft regarding a model described in the article. The referee and the authors had been collaborating on a review article previously, but had fallen out. The ...
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Patient consent
06-01 The journal received a case report for a patient presenting with a particular syndrome in which patients give approximate answers to simple questions. This syndrome has been considered as a dissociative condition but others have ...
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Duplicate publication
06-02 An email was received from a reader indicating a possible duplicate publication of an article that appeared in the journal in 2004, and a similar publication that appeared in another journal in 2003. The Editor immediately wrote to ...