After a manuscript was accepted, an author passed away before they could complete the conflict of interest statement and copyright transfer documents. The publishing company requires that all authors complete these documents prior to publishing.
Shortly after publication, we received a 12-page letter from a journalist, detailing extensive undisclosed COIs of the authors. The letter was also addressed to another journal which published another protocol from the group, as well as to the university (the lead author is associated with the university). In the letter, the CMG movement is characterized as a controversial, multimillion dollar international enterprise. The healing modalities promoted by CMG do not appear to be evidence based. In the letter, evidence was provided showing that all researchers are long term public promoters of the CMG enterprise, as well as being spiritual adherents to the CMG ‘religion’. One author is a former CMG company director. The letter also says that the lead researcher is the spouse of a current CMG “company director” (which is disputed by the author). The corporation is owned by another corporation which in turned is owned by the founder of the CMG enterprise.
据称在信中（并通过我们自己的互联网搜索确认），所有作者都是CMG精神和商业社区内的有影响力的人。我们面临着这些指控的领先作者，并要求提交人提供更详细的COI声明，以便可能更正原文。In response, the lead author submitted a 1-page revised COI statement detailing that all four authors have varying degrees of association with the CMG and are members of the “Practitioners’ Association” which is the body regulating practitioners who are qualified to practice CMG modalities. Two authors have “occasionally offered paid private healing sessions”. The revised COI by the author also alleged that “all authors have experienced substantial health benefits since they started visiting CMG events”. In addition, they all have published blogs on CMG associated websites. The wife of the lead author is—according to the revised COI—involved in “voluntary activities around producing content for a CMG associated company and is a “company secretary” of the CMG associated company and “does this in an honorary capacity. She is not a director or shareholder” and “does not receive any financial incentives” from CMG.
Written by应对理事会 版本12016年1月 如何引用 科普委员会。应对讨论文件：处理相互竞争的利益。2016年7月。
我们的COPE材料可在知识共享署名非商业性NoDerivs许可下使用 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0./ Attribution — You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they 支持您或您对工作的使用）。
《华尔街日报》所做的： 1我们立即联系了作者，让他们知道我们对他们的行为感到失望。作者承认了他们的错误，并已经联系了审稿人道歉。这位评论员接受了道歉，但表示希望我们能将他的评论公之于众，他说：“我继续收到一些人的电子邮件，他们认为我为该报写了负面评论，并提出了有关利益冲突的问题。我相信我的评论是支持出版的，而不是评论杂志是否应该接受。因此，从我的角度来看，如果你能发表我的评论，不管其他评论人是否同意这一点，都会很有帮助……” 2其他评论员和作者都同意我们可以公开此事，所以我们打破了先例，发表了一篇博客。我们在Twitter和博客的评论部分收到了大部分积极的评论。 三。我们还修改了《华尔街日报》网站上对作者的说明，称“对于被拒的研究论文，我们希望作者对同行评论员的身份和评论保密。但是，他们可以与其他期刊秘密分享同行评议意见（尽管不是同行评议人的名字）。如果作者对同行评议过程或同行评议者的行为有任何投诉，应联系处理论文的编辑。” 4我们还修改了我们的拒绝信，说：“虽然杂志有一个开放的同行评议程序，作者知道同行评议者是谁，但我们希望你对本文同行评议者的身份和评论保密。但是，你可以与你提交论文的其他期刊秘密分享同行评议意见（尽管不是同行评议者的名字）。如果您对同行评议过程或同行评议员的行为有任何投诉，请联系处理您论文的编辑。请不要直接联系同行评论员。” 5. We continue to follow-up periodically with the reviewer to make sure he is not suffering any additional ill effects from this incident. 6.我们正在提交这种情况以应付，并将将其转递给日志的内部道德委员会。这件事似乎似乎已经死了，但它提出了许多问题。
The Forum discussed whether the author was under pressure by a media interview and gave a comment afterwards for which they later apologised, or was it deliberate on the part of the author as the paper was published in another journal and this was an “attack” on the reviewer for the journal that rejected the paper. The Forum was ambivalent on whether the first author's institution should be contacted. It is possible that the institution is already aware of the case (because of the media coverage) but the institution could be contacted in neutral terms although it is unlikely that the journal could expect much action from them.