回顾纸覆盖certai的预防n type of infection was submitted to Journal A. One of the reviewers identified that the paper was based word for word on a report that had published guidelines on the same area. The authors of both pieces are different. The only significant differences between the submission and the original paper were in the introduction and conclusion. The editor of Journal A contacted the corresponding author by letter, email, and subsequently mobile phone. During the telephone conversation, the corresponding author acknowledged that there was some overlap, but the telephone call ended abruptly at that point. The editor has been unable to contact the joint authors who work at the same institution. The editor subsequently contacted the lead technical writer/editor of the report who considered this scientific misconduct and is to present the case to her editorial board. Should the editor inform the director of the institution from which the paper emanated? Should s/he inform other people who have published papers with these authors? Should s/he publish details of this episode in the journal and identify the sources?
_ Was there a national body that the authors would be registered with? Where would such private practitioners go to get ethics committee approval for such a study? _ In private health care research the lines of accountability are often unclear and this may have been an inadvertent omission on the authors’ part. _ Some groups did fall between organisations set up to approve research and it is difficult for them to know who to approach for ethics approval. The main problem for small private researchers is the incoherence of the structures. _ This problem becomes even more pronounced when authors are from other countries where the research ethics committee system is less comprehensive. Occasionally editors receive papers from countries with no research ethics review system. _ Editors should only publish research that would meet the standards of a research ethics committee in a developed country. _ In some countries though there is nominally a system in place, in reality the mechanism is purely administrative not ethical. Editors needed to be aware of this and should not assume that the ethics committee approval process had been carried out to the same level as in developed countries. _ As these particular authors are responsible to a national regulatory body, the editor should report his concerns to that body after informing the authors of his intention to do so. _ If the researchers are working in a private hospital, such hospitals do have research governance frameworks.
The editors have written to all the authors explaining their editorial decision and intention to submit the case to the relevant authorities. Lawyers wrote back on behalf of the corresponding author. One author was unreachable because the email address was invalid; another expressed surprise at receiving the editors’ message, explaining that he could not remember having approved any manuscript for submission. The editors are now planning to write to the authors’ institutions and regulatory bodies.