Conflict of interest

由我们的期刊拒绝的文件的第一个作者公开通过名称公开为本纸张的四个同行评审员之一。她在媒体面试期间做过这篇文章，在本文被另一个期刊发布后进行。第一个作者暗示在那次采访中，随后在推特上，由于该人的审查并声称审稿人没有透露相关的Cois被拒绝。

这项投诉获得了很大的关注，因为被拒绝的论文直接承担了一个非常痛苦的医疗/政治物质，而且它的结果被认为是一个派系的案件。作者尚未向我们关于此事的杂志提出正式投诉。我们通常不会评论我们没有发布的论文，所以在印刷机联系时，关于这笔指责，我们的初步反应是我们考虑本文的“既不确认也不拒绝”。然而，它很快就明确了，审稿人是对社交媒体和其他报复行为有多不愉快的主题。例如，审阅者的同事推文，他是“惭愧”成为与审稿人同一机构的教授。审稿人还获得了两项信息请求，要求与拒绝纸质的任何人的任何通信征求任何通知。

What the journal did:
我们立即联系了作者让他们知道我们对自己的行为感到失望。作者承认了他们的错误，已经联系了审稿人道歉。审稿人接受了道歉，但表达了我们将审查公众，称“我继续从那些假设我为论文编写负面评论并提出有关利益冲突的问题的电子邮件。我相信我的评论支持出版物，而不是关于期刊是否应接受。所以从我的角度来看，如果您可以发布我的评论，无论其他审稿人是否同意这一点，就会有所帮助......“
2.其他审稿人和作者一致认为我们可以公开这项问题，所以我们用先例和发表了一个博客。我们在Twitter和博客的评论部分上获得了积极评论。
3. We have also amended our instructions for authors on the journal website to say "For rejected research papers, we expect that authors will keep the identity and comments of peer reviewers confidential. They may, however, share the peer review comments (although not peer reviewer names) in confidence with other journals. Authors should contact the editor who handled their paper if they have any complaints about the peer review process or the behaviour of the peer reviewers."
4.我们还修订了我们的拒绝信来说，“虽然期刊有一个开放的同行评审过程，其中作者知道同行评审员是谁，我们预计您将保留对同行评审员的身份和评论本文保密然而，您可以与您提交文件的其他期刊分享同行审查评论（虽然不是同行评审员的姓名）。如果您对同行评审过程或同行评审员的行为有任何投诉，请联系处理您的论文的编辑。请不要直接联系Peer Reviewers。“
5.我们继续定期与审稿人一起随访，以确保他从这一事件中遭受任何额外的疾病。
6. We are submitting this case to COPE and will also be referring it to the journal's internal ethics committee. The matter now seems to have died down, but it raises many questions.

应对论坛的问题
•如果日志是否已经不同地处理？
• Should the journal formally notify the first author's institution about her behaviour?
• Are the additional instructions to authors on our website and in rejection letters adequate? Should we do anything else to prevent this from happening again?
•作为同一领域的同行评审员应该作为论文的作者宣布为COI？如果是这样，什么时候？几乎所有审稿人都被选中，因为他们在同一个领域拥有专业知识，通常他们的结论在某些方面有不同的不同。目前很少有综述人员在他们的Cois中列出这一点。

The journal is operated by institute A, and the editor is an employee of institute A. A manuscript was submitted late in 2014 by authors from institute B, a similar type of organisation in the same country. The manuscript was reviewed by two referees who both recommended publication following minor revision. One of the reviewers noted that the abstract contained a vague statement related to the effectiveness of a treatment for a major type of export from the country but there was no further detail in the main text. In addition, the issue of worker safety was raised in the introduction but not discussed elsewhere. There was also a lack of context for the work and a lack of relevant conclusions. The authors were asked to add more detail on each of these points.

2015年5月，作者提交了一份订正版本的稿件，其中包含更多相关信息和参考资料来支持其陈述。编辑和助理编辑认为作者已处理裁判员提出的问题并接受本文。本文于2015年7月4日公布。

在发布后几天后，B坐落于编辑的高级经理。曼止表示，原稿已被研究所提交批准，但修订后的手稿没有，并要求编辑立即从日记的网站中删除本文。编辑说这是不可能的，进一步解释说，如果研究所希望纸纸撤回，那么他们需要提供书面理由。

在一个小时内，编辑收到了来自Institute B的经理的三封电子邮件。第一个说这篇论文“包含在最终确定文本时无法解决的错误和猜测，因为纸质没有重新在“期刊”审查“审查”课程“中审查时提交给研究所的社会过程”，该研究所认为“本文并非促进了对该领域的研究的准确性和完全科学的科学记录，因此尊重它被撤回”。

The second email said that the manager at institute B had “since been in contact with the industry group who funded the project and they believe the inaccuracies are ‘significant’. As such, I’d like to emphasis the urgency in our request. I understand that in general journal referees remain anonymous unless they choose to identify themselves. In this instance I’ve been asked if we are able to learn the identity of the referees. Would you please comment on this so that I may respond appropriately?”

第三封电子邮件说：“自今天早些时候我与您与您联系，资助机构已从有关政府部门的反馈，他们提供了支持，以确保裁决予以反应。我认为这表明这些各方在确保信息方面的担忧是准确的。事实的错误和随后对与工人安全和熏蒸疗效相关的后果的猜测是有问题的。“

编辑给这件事通过再保险紧急关注viewing the paper and checking the journal’s ethical guidelines (which are those of COPE). They concluded that a retraction was not warranted because the majority of this paper had not changed post revision so the potentially misleading revisions amounted to just a small portion of an otherwise reliable publication. The editor also concluded that, in accordance with COPE guidelines, the authors should submit an erratum detailing the specific passages of text that were incorrect and provide factually correct rewording. The editor sent these conclusions in an email to the manager at institute B the same day and waited for an erratum to be submitted promptly given the apparent seriousness of the situation. The editor did not reveal the names of the referees as the journal operates a closed review process. The editor also alerted the journal’s overseas publisher to this issue in order to fast track the erratum.

Ten days later, no erratum had been submitted to the journal but the editor was copied into an email from the funding agency to the manager at institute B. The agency thanked the manager for drafting an erratum but advised them that the funding agency and government department considered the risk associated with publishing an erratum to be too great so one should not be published. The funding agency also asked that both institutes A and B “manage their processes to ensure that any similar event does not occur in future”.

ATTURE B的经理B将同名电子邮件转发给编辑的编辑，说明不会提交错误。编辑回答说，表达错误的错误被起草（但未提交），并不是由资助机构/政府部门决定是否应公布任何错误。编辑解释说，如果存在错误，作者违反了科学纪录。但是，如果没有事实错误，但只有一些人发生的陈述，有些人发生不同意，那么没有必要的错误。编辑要求在研究所的经理B确认这些情况中的哪一个是正确的，并且经理回答说明“论文中没有错误”。

Since then, the editor has been advised by colleagues that the funding agency has been alleging that publication of this paper could harm a key export industry for the country and cause substantial economic losses, and that institute A was at fault by allowing its journal to publish such sensitive work. These allegations are being strongly refuted by institute A. At no point have the authors of the paper communicated with the Editor.

编辑提交了这种情况，突出了以下问题：
• key stakeholders in a published work (but not the actual authors) have attempted to suppress legitimate scientific results because of possible economic and political damage to an export industry;
•这是一个严重的科学伦理;
•毫无根据的指控已经在日记的主人身上升级，以便允许该文件发表。

应对论坛的问题

• What further steps or alternative actions does COPE recommend be taken?